Low Vision and Technology

Presentation by Tom Stewart

To

The International Symposium on Low

Vision Rehabilitation and Visual Ability

Rome 15th - 17th December 2010

www.system-concepts.com tom@system-concepts.com

People with low vision have traditionally had difficulties in a society which is

increasingly geared towards visual expression. Signposting, advertising and

entertainment often rely on visual impact and although people with low vision

usually have some useful vision, they may miss out on what is going on around

them.

Slide 1 Modern life is full of visual images eg Times Square

Nonetheless, many people with low vision perform well in the workplace and

assistive technology can help dramatically. In System Concepts, we regularly

test websites for accessibility and are often amazed at how effectively people

using screen readers can perform most tasks. But sometimes web designers

forget about these users and put critical information in images, which are not

read properly by the screen reader.

Slides 2a and 2b – Amazon - prices only appears in an image.

In the past, assistive technology has tended to be expensive, highly specialised

and adapted to specific individuals. Recent developments in technology mean

that computer technology is now much more personal, with many people

owning laptops, smart phones and tablets (and some people having all three).

Slides 3a, 3b and 3c – Laptops, smart phones and tablets

Personal portable technology not only allows individuals to carry their own

customised devices with them but many of these new developments

incorporate accessibility features as standard. Smart phones now include such

features as screen readers and magnifiers, voice recognition and keyboards,

which can be adapted to suit the users.

In the UK, the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) has a useful

website with information about phone and computer accessibility features.

Slide 4 –RNIB technology help website

http://www.rnib.org.uk/livingwithsightloss/computersphones/Pages/computers_

mobile_phones.aspx

Tablets, which have been around for some time, received a major boost when

Apple introduced the iPad. Millions of these have now been sold and many

manufacturers are producing their own versions.

Slide 5 – Accessibility options on iPad

Although these devices too have powerful accessibility features built-in

including voice over, and white on black screens, one of the „killer features‟ is

the multi-touch screen, which allows users to magnify and shrink images with a

simple „pinch‟ gesture. For many people with low vision, this is all they need to

make the interface more accessible and it comes as standard – it is not an

addition for low vision users.

There are many myths about accessible technology (http://bit.ly/eY1Xhj ) and a

particularly common one is that “accessibility stops you using images on the

website”. It certainly does not. As I mentioned earlier, if you put critical

content as images, without appropriate text descriptions, then visually impaired

users will miss it. But we find that many people with low vision find that

images help them navigate around pages even if they cannot see fine detail.

Even users with no vision can find that images on the page help them form a

mental picture of the layout of the page. The most important point - as my

colleague Mickela Perera eloquently pointed out in our World Usability Day

podcast on communications - is for designers to check that the website still

works with images turned off.

Slide 6 Screen shot of Mickela‟s podcast

http://www.system-concepts.com/articles/usability-articles/2010/accessibility-

tips.html

One of the biggest myths is that “disabled users are only a small minority” so

why bother? It is true that registered disabled users are a minority. But

according to a recent report in the Guardian newspaper, 36% of the 9 million

disabled people in the UK are regularly online – a minority, but a sizeable one.

However there is a much larger number of users who are not classified as

disabled, but who would benefit from accessibility features, including being able

to increase font size, adjust image contrast or use text to speech in noisy

environments. We were once asked by a car insurance website manager why

he needed to bother with visually impaired users as they would not be driving

anyway! Apart from his legal obligations, we pointed out that some users with

visual impairments can still drive, and anyway, they may well wish to buy

insurance for others.

Researching employment opportunities for this talk, I came across the

European Blind Union website which showed the kind of jobs which are

suitable for people with low vision.

Slides 7 European Blind Union jobs

http://www.euroblind.org/jobwebsite/jobcategory.htm

And just in case you think there are only a few limited opportunities under

each heading, these lead on to further detail including many jobs suitable for

people, who are completely blind:

Slide 8 Administration jobs http://www.euroblind.org/jobwebsite/admin.htm

Regarding accessibility as an option for a minority is a big mistake. In most

countries there are laws to protect the interests of people with low vision and

other disabled people. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 has

now been replaced by the Equality Act 2010, and makes it a legal requirement

for service providers (including website providers) not to discriminate against

people with disabilities. So websites which offer special deals online must

ensure that their websites are accessible to avoid breaking the law.

World-wide, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with

Disabilities, which came into force in 2008, made accessible and assistive

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) a legal right.

Slide 9 UN convention website

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26554&Cr=disab&Cr1

National bodies, standards makers and regulators are beginning to take action.

This impact is only just „trickling down‟ to consumers but we believe that in

the future inaccessible technology won‟t just be unusable and annoying, it will

be breaching people‟s human rights. Yet, as we have indicated briefly above, it

really is not difficult to accommodate users with disabilities including low vision

and there are really no excuses for ignoring this important section of the

community and workforce.

Tom Stewart, December 2010

www.system-concepts.com