Archive for the 'Accessibility' Category
Alternative forms of communication become necessary when conventional techniques (voice, body language) are compromised due to variety of circumstances.
This super cool technology is still in its infancy though moving fwd due to grant money and such. Basically, the idea is to have a person use their tongue as a mouse and the teeth as keyboards, eventually. By tracking the movements, even on a basic level, the technology allows a person who may not have been able to communicate in any other way to now answer basic yes/no questions.
There has been movement to utilize eye movements but it was found to be costly, slow and likely for mixed signals. (We certainly dont need any more mixed signals!)
BTW, I dont exactly know the segue for this except some neuron in my head connected the movie Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.) Various assistive technology techniques are used to enable this former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine to write a book, despite his movement being limited to only his head and left eye.
Although my iPod still works (after severe water damage inflicted upon it few weeks back), the screen is totally busted. Therefore, the music I have been able to play is based solely the memory of the navigation once displayed on the screen that is no longer there.
It got me thinking about things I could SEE versus the things I could NOT SEE but somehow knew they were there. I wondered how blind people use these devices (after all, I was essentially navigating the device as a blind person would.)
Apparently, they don’t. The “zen pod,” or Creative Zenstone does (even tho it was not originally intended for that purpose) due to the fact that its a non-screen-based model. Apple shuffle can be used for this, as well.
It is sad how the amount of screen-based interfaces permeating the market today is actually cutting out an entire group of users.
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