Have we taken radio for granted in our high-tech world? I think the answer is an emphatic “yes!” We may not realize this, but many of us are constantly on the air nowadays. It’s no longer just about the DJ on the broadcast radio airwaves, the ham radio operator keying Morse Code on a primitive transmitter or the pilot talking with her air traffic controllers to ensure a safe flight.

The world is now comprised of an uncountable number of tiny radios found in many electronic devices we have come to enjoy and use every day. We know, for instance, that an iPhone 4S contains at least six distinct radios: a radio capable of receiving and transmitting signals on the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band, a radio that can talk to Bluetooth devices such as headsets and keyboards, two different radios for talking on the CDMA and GSM cellular frequencies, another radio to facilitate Internet access through the cellular data networks and, finally, a GPS receiver. When you use your iPhone, it is safe to say you are probably using at least two, if not more, different radios all at the same time!

How is it we have come to forget about radio and take it for granted in our highly-developed technological society? I think the answer is that radios are not as obvious as they were once upon a time. In the not-too-distant past, if you listened to the radio, you were looking at a separate box with buttons, dials and switches and a set of headphones or a pair of speakers. If you were a radio star, you held a microphone and faced a bewildering panel of carts and controls. If you talked on a two-way radio, you probably had a special license or it was part of your job and you either held a small walkie-talkie type box or you sat in front of a bunch of equipment with lots of buttons, dials, knobs, meters and switches. In any case, the radio part of the task you were performing was front and center. That’s not so now.

When do you think about radio today? Perhaps, most of us really give it serious thought when we’re riding in our cars or listening to our stereos at home. Otherwise, although the radios in our lives are present, they’re usually buried. When I was talking with a friend about the radios in the iPhone, she thought I was referring to all the radio apps out there for listening to broadcast stations streamed on the Internet. Despite the shrinking of radios into tiny chips on circuit boards hidden inside our favorite electronic devices, we’re using them more often today than we ever have at any time in the past. When we talk on a cordless or cell phone, we’re talking on a radio. When we use a laptop computer to go online from our favorite coffee shop, we’re on the air. Believe it or not, we are all radio stars!

What does all this mean for the world? I think we’re slowly forgetting about radio’s past and, in the process, we may be leaving many people in disadvantaged populations and developing nations behind. The advent of Internet streaming and satellite radio has been cited as justification for massive cutbacks in the availability of programming on the shortwave radio broadcast bands, despite the fact that these radios are the only way hundreds of millions of people may be able to gain timely access to entertainment and important information about their world.

The long-time switch from the inherently non-visual radio medium to television and, now, streaming video on the Internet has meant that it can be more challenging for blind people to enjoy many forms of entertainment that were once more accessible. This is probably a significant reason for the resurgence of old-time-radio listening in the blind community.

How about emergency communication? What happens when the cell towers are blown down in a hurricane? What would happen if a significant number of the satellites we rely on for communication and navigation suddenly became unavailable? What would the world’s survivors do in the event of a massive electromagnetic pulse or nuclear war? The uber-geeky amateur (ham) radio operators have the enthusiasm, innovative spirit, qualifications and access to older equipment it would take to communicate during an emergency and coordinate the reorganization of the world when our high-tech gadgets and infrastructure become useless.

Unfortunately, the world’s governments continue to deemphasize radio. Shortwave broadcasts to many parts of the world are cut every year. Fewer and fewer people are interested in ham radio and there’s no longer a Morse Code requirement for any class of amateur radio license in America and many other countries. Morse Code can cut through radio noise like no other mode of radio transmission, but who is going to know how to use it when it is needed most?

How can we continue to move forward into the bright future of a technology-driven world while ensuring our safety and promoting stability and security? I think one small thing we can do is to keep radio in our minds and think about it a little each day. When you’re checking your email, talking or tweeting on your iPhone, remember that you are using several tiny radios to make it all happen. When you’re listening to satellite radio or streaming your favorite station through ooTunes, think about all the people in the developing world who don’t have access to this content and remember that an older technology called shortwave radio can reach them if we ensure its continued existence. Finally, think about those of us who have passed numerous qualification exams and learned Morse Code to earn our ham radio licenses, which we may someday need to use as a means of providing life-saving communications services in the event of a disaster.

I’d love to hear from readers. What does radio mean to you? Please feel free to post your story in the comments or mention me, darrell on Twitter.

This show features a special surprise musical treat sung by Allison!

• Listen or Pause – DropVox Demonstration
• Download – DropVox Demonstration

We love hearing from our listeners! Please feel free to talk with us in the comments. What do you like? How could we make the show better? What topics would you like us to cover on future shows?

If you use Twitter, let’s get connected! Please follow Allison (AlliTalk) and Darrell.

• Listen or Pause – Downcast Demonstration
• Download – Downcast Demonstration

Downcast allows anyone with an iOS device to independently enjoy podcasts without having to connect to a computer and use iTunes to subscribe and synchronize the content.

All instructions assume VoiceOver is running on the iOS device.

Searching for Podcasts by Category

Follow these steps to browse and review podcasts by category. We use This Week in Tech as an example of a good technology show to consider adding.

1. Make sure the Downcast app is open.
2. Touch the bottom left corner of the screen to locate the Podcasts tab.
3. Right flick twice and double tap the Add Podcasts tab.
4. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
5. Right flick to and double tap the Technology category.
6. Right flick to and double tap This Week in Tech – MP3 Edition.
7. Right flick to and double tap View Podcast Feed. Note the Subscribe button and other information available as you right flick across this screen.
8. Right flick across the list of available podcast episodes and double tap one to start listening.
9. Double tap with two fingers to pause playback.

Search for Podcasts Using Keywords

Follow these steps to search for podcasts by keyword. We like books, so that’s our keyword search example.

1. If you were playing a podcast, double tap the Back button three times or use the two-finger right-to-left scrub gesture three times to return to the Add Podcasts screen.
2. Right flick to and double tap Search for Podcasts.
3. Type books into the search field.
4. Double tap the Search button in the lower right corner of the screen.
5. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
6. Right flick to and double tap the Books on the Nightstand podcast in the list of search results.
7. Right flick to and double tap the Subscribe button to add this podcast to your favorites.
8. Double tap the Back button twice or use the two-finger right-to-left scrub gesture twice to return to the Add Podcasts screen.

When the podcast you want is not in Downcast’s directory, there are three ways to bring it into the app. We did not cover these advanced topics on the audio portion of our show.

Adding Podcasts from a Link on a Website

If a website has a link to an RSS feed for a podcast, you can browse to it using Safari on your iOS device and easily add it to Downcast by following these instructions. The podcast page on the GW Micro website serves as our example.

1. Open Safari on your iOS device.
2. Visit http://gwmicro.com/podcast
3. Right flick to and double tap and hold on the link to the GW Micro – GW Insider Podcast Feed (XML).
4. Right flick to and double tap the Copy button. This makes the link available to other apps such as Downcast.
5. Open Downcast.
6. Touch the bottom left corner of the screen to locate the Podcasts tab.
7. Right flick twice and double tap the Add Podcasts tab.
8. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
9. Right flick to and double tap Add Podcast Manually.
10. Right flick to and double tap the text edit field after the Feed or OPML Address heading.
11. Select “Edit” using the rotor VoiceOver gesture.
12. Flick down and double tap Paste. The URL copied from Safari now appears in the text edit field.
13. If needed, enter the username and password under the Login Information, If Required heading. This will rarely be used. It is not needed for GW Micro podcasts.
14. Find and double tap the Done button in the lower right corner of the screen.
15. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
16. Right flick to and double tap the Subscribe button to add the podcast.
17. Double tap the Back button twice or use the two-finger right-to-left scrub gesture twice to return to the Add Podcasts screen.

Manually Adding Podcasts

Follow these steps when you know the URL of the RSS feed for the podcast you wish to add.

1. If a Back button can be found near the upper left corner of the screen, double tap it as many times as necessary or use the two-finger right-to-left scrub gesture as many times as necessary to return to the app’s main screen. This will typically be Podcasts, Playlists, Add Podcasts or Downloads.
2. Touch the bottom left corner of the screen to locate the Podcasts tab.
3. Right flick twice and double tap the Add Podcasts tab.
4. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
5. Right flick to and double tap Add Podcast Manually.
6. Right flick to and double tap the text edit field after the Feed or OPML Address heading.
7. Enter the URL of the RSS feed exactly as it was given to you. Leave off the “http://” at the beginning.
8. If needed, enter the username and password under the Login Information, If Required heading. This will rarely be used.
9. Find and double tap the Done button in the lower right corner of the screen.
10. Tap the top of the screen once with four fingers to move to the upper left corner.
11. Right flick to and double tap the Subscribe button to add the podcast.
12. Double tap the Back button twice or use the two-finger right-to-left scrub gesture twice to return to the Add Podcasts screen.

Adding Podcasts from an OPML File

Downcast can use OPML files to backup and restore the list of subscribed podcasts. This technique also allows users to bring in lists of podcasts from other apps and to share favorite podcasts.

Follow these steps to import a list of podcasts from an email.

1. Open the Mail app on your iOS device.
2. Open the email containing the OPML file attachment.
3. Right flick through the message until you reach the name of the file. This may be something like podcasts.opml.
4. Double tap the file’s name to open the attachment.
5. Right flick to and double tap the Action button.
6. Double tap Open in Downcast. The app will start dinging as it downloads the new podcasts.
7. Double tap the Podcasts tab in the lower left corner of the screen to see the revised list of subscribed podcasts including those just added from the OPML file. Beware: Downcast imports everything found in the file without checking for duplicate entries.

Playing Podcasts

Now that you have subscribed to several podcasts, you’re probably anxious to start listening to them. Follow these instructions to get started.

1. Double tap the Podcasts tab in the lower left corner of the screen.
2. Right flick across the list of subscribed podcasts until you reach the show you would like to hear.
3. Double tap the podcast to bring up the list of episodes.
4. Right flick to and double tap an episode to start playing the audio. Each episode has two entries in the list. The first allows you to download or stream the audio and the second provides details. Double tap download or stream links to play podcast episodes.
• The two-finger double tap gesture plays and pauses audio.
• The Play button is found in the middle of the bottom third of the screen. It changes to a Pause button while audio is playing.
• The Reverse button is located to the left of the Play button. Double tap it to move to the previous episode. Double tap and hold it to rewind in the currently playing episode.
• The Forward button is located to the right of the Play button. Double tap it to move to the next episode. Double tap and hold it to fast forward within the currently playing episode.

There are many more features available in the podcast playback screen. For instance, we demonstrated the ability to increase playback speed in the audio portion of our show. We urge you to listen to the entire demo, get the app for yourself, explore and start enjoying podcast listening on your iOS device.

Additional Resources

• TechAccess Daily Tip 239: DownCast
• Follow Downcast (downcastapp) on Twitter.
• Downcast Website

Please feel free to give us your feedback in the comments. What do you like? How could we make the show better? What topics would you like us to cover on future shows?

If you use Twitter, let’s get connected! Please follow Allison (AlliTalk) and Darrell.

We demonstrate reading with Read2Go’s built-in text-to-speech voices and VoiceOver while explaining the process in our typical step-by-step format.

Please feel free to give us your feedback in the comments. What do you like? How could we make the show better? What topics would you like us to cover on future shows?

Listen or Pause – Read2Go Demonstration

Download – Read2Go Demonstration

Custom Labeling Step-By-Step

1. Locate the unlabeled button by dragging your finger or flicking to it on the screen.
2. Double tap with two fingers and hold them in place. This is also known as a two-finger double-tap-and-hold gesture. You will hear three tones followed by “Alert, label element, text field, is editing.”
3. Type a short label for the button.
4. Locate and double tap the Save button. It can be found above the keyboard on the left side of the screen.

In addition to making the controls in an app accessible, the custom-labeling feature can be used to describe pictures in other contexts, such as the photos in your iPhone’s camera roll.

Allison asked an excellent question: Are custom labels backed up to iCloud or iTunes? Please feel free to answer in the comments.

GetGlue Information

GetGlue is a Foursquare-like social network for entertainment. It is available on smartphones and the Web. You can check into your favorite books, movies, music, TV shows and much more and share information about all the fun you’re having with your friends. The primary GetGlue.com website works best with browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari on computers. The mobile m.getglue.com website is intended for use with smartphones. It may be a more accessible alternative to the primary site for some computer users.

Tip from Allison: I recommend signing up on the GetGlue website before logging in with the iOS app.

There are two ways to get started:

• Sign Up with Facebook
• Sign Up with your Email Address

We’d Love To Hear From You!

Do you like the show? What would you like us to cover next? Please give us your feedback in the comments.

Listen or Pause – Custom Labeling Demo

Download – Custom Labeling Demo

While the Blio app is VoiceOver accessible, I have reached the following observations, which are clearly demonstrated in the podcast:

• The app is sloppy and clearly not ready for primetime. I’m surprised Apple approved it in its current form.
• The Blio reading experience is unsatisfying.
• Blio for iOS lacks important navigation, such as lines, sentences and paragraphs, one might expect while reading books.
• Finally, the app lacks a help section or tutorial page.

Listen or Pause – Brief Blio Demo

Download – Brief Blio Demo

The update represents a significant move in the right direction. While all information is now available by flicking through the results window, its unstructured layout could cause confusion. It is not immediately apparent which field represents a song’s artist and its title. Labeling of fields and use of VoiceOver hints would significantly increase readability.

We thank SoundHound for its responsiveness and look forward to future accessibility enhancements.

Listen or Pause – SoundHound Accessibility Update

Download – SoundHound Accessibility Update

Pearson, one of the leading college textbook publishers, has set up a special session at the NFB national convention to get feedback from blind students regarding the accessibility of a new math workbook they are developing. They would like to get 15 students to meet with them during this session, and so far, only four have signed up. We would really like to support Pearson in their initiative to make online learning materials accessible. Please help us out by signing up for this session on Thursday, July 7, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. If you have any free time between 7 and 9 on Thursday, even if it’s not the whole two hours, please let me know-we may be able to work around your schedules so we can get as many student participants as possible.

If you would like to help with the testing, please email me as soon as possible at nabs (dot) president (at) gmail (dot) com so I can give your name to Clara at the national center. Thanks in advance for your help in improving accessibility for blind students.

Best,
Arielle Silverman, President
National Association of Blind Students

Listen or Pause – VizWiz

Download – VizWiz

No Eyes Needed: The History and Decline of Soundhound’s Accessibility

I was an early adopter of the iPhone within the blindness community. I vividly remember shouting “I can’t believe Apple just made the iPhone accessible!”, when I heard the announcements from the World Wide Developers Conference, or WWDC, in 2009. Though we had knowledge that all of Apple’s included applications would be accessible to Voiceover users, none of us really knew the state of accessibility with regards to third-party offerings. I was particularly excited about two applications – Tweetie, a super-fast, mega-trendy Twitter application, and Midomi, a music identification app.

What’s “Midomi”? When it originally hit the App Store, Soundhound went under the moniker “Midomi” under the direction of developer, Melodis. It was $4.99, which was a pretty hefty price tag compared to the collection of freebies and $.99 apps I had already acquired. I had word on good faith from several other “iPhoneres” that this app was worth it, so I decided to give it a shot.

The Midomi app was my first accessibility “brick wall”. Voiceover had absolutely no access to controls, buttons or text within the application. I was frustrated, to say the least, but for some reason, I decided to forego deleting the app. Maybe it was the five bucks I just wasted…

Much to my surprise, a few months later I was going through the list of updates I had available and I noticed a strange application name. It read “Soundhound from Soundhound Incorporated”. After some reading, I quickly realized Melodis was no longer working on the Midomi project and in its place was this new music identifier, Soundhound.

I was skeptical as to whether this offering would, indeed, be accessible, so I launched the app with great hesitation. Much to my surprise – I found an entirely accessible application! Buttons were labeled, text instructions were readable and I was able to immediately start identifying music playing around me.

I had given other “competitor” applications a try, such as Shazaam, which was only slightly more accessible than what was then, Midomi, and is now Soundhound. Soundhound has a much more extensive catalog of music to which it can identify, including classical music, which I know many folks were impressed to see. The other thing I really enjoy about Soundhound is its ability to identify a song by humming it. A great feature set, for sure.

But – something happened. Right around version 3.0, navigating around the application became a bit more “clunky” and information was not as easy to obtain. Voiceover users could, at one point, “flick” right and left to navigate through information from an identified song. As we ventured through the 3.x cycle, we’ve seen even poorer response within the application, to the point where some information isn’t accessible at all.

We define “accessibility”, at its core, as the ease of access to the pertinent and relevant information we need in order to maintain a quality of lifestyle equal to our peers. Information is at the forefront of our culture and it is our belief that the blindness community should not be shut out from accessing and utilizing the same information available to our sighted counterparts. I, along with many others, are paying customers of the Soundhound application and not only is the task of making this application accessible one of an ethical nature, it is something this development team should feel compelled to do in order to serve its customer base. At last glance, Soundhound is $6.99 in the App Store and I believe this price tag warrants some acknowledgement to our plight.

Blind Access Journal: Audio Demonstration of Soundhound’s Music Identification Application

I demonstrate how the primary function of SoundHound, identifying music, is not very accessible to those who rely on VoiceOver to access iOS apps.

Listen or Pause – SoundHound

Download – SoundHound

How Can I Help?

There are a few ways you can aid our efforts in seeing this application back to the highest level of accessibility. We’ve provided three contact points below, and we are asking readers to complete all three. We are excited about taking community action in raising our concerns to the media, design and development teams at Soundhound, and letting them know that accessibility for the blindness community is imperative and a valuable use of their time and resources.

• EMAIL: We believe this advocacy effort is made strong with community support. You can send an email to support@soundhound.com and request that SoundHound begin implementing Voiceover accessibility into its music identification app. If you click the above mentioned email link, a pre-generated advocacy letter will populate in your default email client and, upon choosing “Send”, will be delivered to the support team at Soundhound.
• CALL: We are also asking that readers place a call to Soundhound’s media relations team at 415.722.8583. Sue Ellen Schaming is the media relations contact with Soundhound and can forward our accessibility concerns to the appropriate individuals.
• TWEET: We would love for this advocacy effort to go viral. Take a moment to tweet a short request for accessibility improvements to the Soundhound team. You can follow @Soundhound on Twitter.

Have you used the Soundhound application on your iOS device? What has been your experience? Have you noticed the decline in accessibility through the release cycle over the past few months? Please take a moment to voice your concerns using the information provided in this post.

Open the Contacts App

If you have not customized your iDevice by moving your apps into folders, follow the steps below to locate and start the Contacts app. If you customized the Home screen, locate and start Contacts in the folder it has been assigned.

1. Press the Home button to make sure you are on the Home screen.
2. Flick to the right until you find “Page 1 of 2″ or a similar icon and double tap to move to the second page of apps.
3. Flick to the right until you find Contacts and double tap.

Locating and Testing the Table Index

1. Make sure you are in the list of contacts by flicking to the right a few times. If not, find and double tap the Back button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen just below the status bar.
2. Place a finger on the right edge of the screen about halfway down. VoiceOver should say “table index.”
3. Flick down a few times. If you hear the letters of the alphabet in ascending order, the table index is working correctly. If not, you will hear the words “table index” spelled as you flick down.

Using the Rotor Gesture

If the table index feature is not working, it is very likely the rotor gesture was accidentally used to change its behavior. Follow these steps to set the rotor to “adjust value,” which will fix the table index. Please note these steps are just one of several possible ways to learn and use the rotor gesture. Please email me if you continue experiencing difficulties performing this gesture correctly.

1. Place your middle and index fingers on the screen.
2. Move upward and to the right with your middle finger while your index finger moves down and to the left. This is known as a dial movement, which will adjust the rotor clockwise one position.
3. Repeat the rotor gesture as you move through “words”, “lines,” “language,” etc. Stop when you reach the “adjust value” setting.

Test the table index feature in several apps. You should find it allows you to move alphabetically through your list of contacts, artists and song titles in your music library and in a number of other situations where you have large lists.

As always, your feedback is appreciated so I may improve the content and quality of my work. Please contact me using the previously given email address.

Listen or Pause – Fix Broken Table Index

Download – Fix Broken Table Index

High school, college, and graduate students all find the collection to be an indispensible resource when it comes to finding the books they need for schoolwork and for pleasure reading.

Join the conversation with Allison Hilliker, Bookshare Collection Development Associate and Cherie Miller, Bookshare’s University Program Manager. We will be taking your questions live throughout the discussion. There is no need to pre-register for the event, just call in and join us.

• April 17, 2011, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm PST
• Phone number to call: 866-210-1669.
• Pass code: 6567672

During this discussion you will learn:

• What Bookshare is and how you can become a member
• How Bookshare can make your school work and pleasure reading much easier
• About our new Read2Go app; an app specifically designed for Apple iOS that will allow for quick download and easy reading of Bookshare books on the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone
• How to use Bookshare most efficiently and effectively with your notetaker or digital book player.

We look forward to talking with you on April 17!

Listen or Pause – Braille 2000

Download – Braille 2000

Download, Play or Pause – ZoomReader

Download, Play or Pause – Index Basic and Everest Modernized

Download, Play or Pause – Braille and Print and Tactile Graphics

Download, Play or Pause – Braille Box

If you’re blind and you believe you’ve got what it takes, please check out these position postings and apply as soon as possible.

Through the employment of a representative number of blind people and others with print-reading disabilities in decision-making positions, we can restore the heart of Bookshare and guide it to a more accessible, responsive future. Let’s all get out there and fill the inboxes of Benetech’s human-resources team with awesome cover letters and resumes that will get their attention and get our people in the door!

Anybody is welcome to attend. This is an excelent opportunity to show some app developers that accessibility matters and that blind people are using iOS devices in number. Let’s fill the room with as many Phoenix-area blind people and their talking iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches as we possibly can!

The meeting will be held at the University of Advancing Technology located at 2625 West Baseline Road, Tempe, Ariz., from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2.

We look forward to seeing all of you there.  

Download, Play or Pause – Color Sense with the iPhone: Karen’s Sweaters

On Dec. 12, 2010, the Chronicle published an article entitled Blind Students Demand Access to Online Course Materials, in which my contributions were prominent.

The article highlighted significant accessibility barriers with ASU on Facebook, an application designed to help Arizona State University students connect in a virtual community. The app, developed by San Francisco-based Inigral, Inc., featured controls that couldn’t be accessed by keyboard navigation and images lacking text descriptions.

An Inigral representative contacted me within a few days of the publication of the article, saying she would be in the Phoenix area and asking if we could meet in person to discuss the situation. I agreed, a lunch meeting was scheduled then postponed that very morning till January due to family circumstances.

On Friday, Marc published After Chronicle Story, a Tech Company Improves Accessibility for Blind Users on the publication’s Wired Campus blog, stating that Inigral representatives met with the university’s Disability Resource Center and work is underway to improve the app’s accessibility.

After briefly reviewing the ASU on Facebook app as of Friday, Jan. 7, I can report that significant improvements have already been achieved. The “Go to App” link can now be followed using keyboard navigation, the website is more usable and I notice fewer images lacking descriptions.

Inigral’s co-founder, Joseph Sofaer, posted an accurate Jan. 4 article about the key elements of good website accessibility on the company’s blog.

The important point I hope readers will take away is that advocating for accessibility does make a difference. One more web-based application is now going to be accessible because a blind person agreed to be part of an article published in a widely-reade higher-education publication. It is critical for us to continue going after what we know is right: the equal accessibility that affords us the full participation we must have in order to learn, live and work in society as productive members alongside our sighted peers. This means we absolutely must pound the pavement. When we encounter an inaccessible app, piece of software or website, we *MUST* contact the company about it right away asking that it be corrected. If we don’t get timely responses, we need to follow up, escalating communications as far and as high in a company’s chain of command as they must go in order to get results. It’s a lot of hard work that can’t be done by one person, so I urge each and every one of you out there, whether you are a blind person or a sighted one who cares about us, to do your part by taking each and every possible opportunity to advocate, kick the ball out of the stadium, score the touchdown and win the game for the pro-accessibility team!

Tyler covers a number of topics in this approximately 30-minute podcast, including:

• A physical description of the Refreshabraille 18 with commentary and a demonstration of its durability.
• A thorough demonstration of the process for pairing the Refreshabraille with the iPod Touch using Bluetooth.
• Remote control and navigation of the iPod Touch using the controls on the Refreshabraille from a distance.
• Contracted Braille keyboard text entry.
• Using VoiceOver Practice Mode to demonstrate a possibly easy means for teaching and learning Braille.

I am honored to welcome Tyler to the Blind Access Journal podcast for his excellent debut. We are looking forward to many more contributions.

Download, Play or Pause: Exploring the iPod Touch and Learning Braille Using the Refreshabraille Display

Awareness! The Headphone App, authored by small developer Essency, costs 99 cents in the iTunes Store. VoiceOver support for the app costs blind customers over five times its original price at $4.99.

Essency co-founder Alex Georgiou said the extra cost comes from the added expense and development time required to make Awareness! Accessible with Apple’s built-in VoiceOver screen reader.

“Awareness! is a pretty unusual App. Version 1.x used a custom interface that did not lend itself very well for VoiceOver,” he said. “Our developers tried relabeling all the controls and applied the VoiceOver tags as per spec but this didn’t improve things much. There were so many taps and swipe gestures involved in changing just one setting that it really was unusable.”

Essency’s developers tackled the accessibility challenge by means of a technique the blind community knows all too well with websites like Amazon and Safeway that offer a separate, incomplete accessibility experience requiring companies to spend additional funds on specialized, unwanted customer-service training and technical maintenance tasks.

“The solution was to create a VoiceOver-specific interface, however, this created another headache for our developers,” Georgiou said. “It meant having the equivalent of a dual interface: one interface with the custom controllers and the other optimized for VoiceOver. It was almost like merging another version of Awareness! in the existing app.”

As an example of the need for a dual-interface approach and a challenge to the stated simplicity of making iOS apps accessible, Georgiou described a portion of the app’s user interface the developers struggled to make accessible with VoiceOver:

“Awareness! features an arched scale marked in percentages in the centre of a landscape screen with a needle that pivots from left to right in correspondence to sound picked up by either the built in mic or inline headphones. You change the mic threshold by moving your finger over the arched scale which uses a red filling to let you know where it’s set. At the same time, a numerical display appears telling you the dBA value of the setting. When the needle hits the red, the mic is switched on and routed to your headphones. To the right you have the mic volume slider, turn the mic volume up or down by sliding your finger over it. Then you have a series of buttons placed around the edges that control things like the vibrate alarm, autoset, mic trigger and the settings page access.”

Georgiou said maintaining two separate user interfaces, one for blind customers and another for sighted, comes at a high price.

“At the predicted uptake of VoiceOver users, we do not expect to break even on the VoiceOver interface for at least 12 to 18 months unless something spectacular happens with sales,” he said. “We would have loved to have made this option free, unfortunately the VoiceOver upgrade required a pretty major investment, representing around 60% of the budget for V2 which could have been used to further refine Awareness and introduce new features aimed at a mass market.”

Georgiou said this dual-interface scheme will continue to represent a significant burden to Essency’s bottom line in spite of the added charge to blind customers.

“Our forecasts show that at best we could expect perhaps an extra 1 or 2 thousand VoiceOver users over the next 12 to 18 months,” he said. “At the current pricing this would barely cover the costs for the VoiceOver interface development.”

Georgiou said payment of the $4.99 accessibility charge does not make the app fully accessible at this time.

“It is our intention that the VoiceOver interface will continue to be developed with new features such as AutoPause and AutoSet Plus being added on for free,” he said. “Lack of time did not allow these features to be included in this update.”

Georgiou said the decision to make Awareness! Accessible had nothing to do with business.

“From a business perspective it really didn’t make sense for us to invest in a VoiceOver version but we decided to go ahead with the VoiceOver version despite the extra costs because we really want to support the blind and visually impaired,” he said. “It was a decision based on heartfelt emotion, not business.”

Georgiou said accessibility should be about gratitude and he would even consider it acceptable for a company to charge his daughter four to five times as much for something she needed if she were to have a disability.

“Honestly, I would be grateful and want to encourage as many parties as possible to consider accessibility in apps and in fact in all areas of life,” he said. “I would not object to any developer charging their expense for adding functionality that allowed my daughter to use an app that improved her life in any way. In this case, better to have than not.”

Georgiou said he wants to make it clear he and his company do not intend to exploit or harm blind people.

“I first came into contact with a blind couple when I was 10 years old through a Christian Sunday school (over 38 years ago),” he said. “They were the kindest couple I ever met and remember being amazed at the things they managed to do without sight. I remember them fondly. I could not imagine myself or my partner doing anything to hurt the blind community.”

A common thread in many of Georgiou’s statements seems to ask how a small company strikes a balance between doing the right thing and running a financially sustainable business that supports their families.

“I don’t think you understand, we’re a tiny company. We’re not a corporate,” he said. “The founders are just two guys who have families with kids, I’ve got seven!”

Georgiou said he understands how accessibility is a human right that ought to be encouraged and protected.

“I recognize that there is a problem here that can be applied to the world in general and it’s important to set an acceptable precedent,” he said. “I think I’ve already made my opinions clear in that I believe civilized society should allow no discrimination whatsoever.”

In spite of accessibility as a human right in the civilized world, Georgiou said he believes this consideration must be balanced with other practical business needs.

“When it comes to private companies, innovation, medicine, technology, etc., It’s ultra-important all are both encouraged and incentivized to use their talents to improve quality of life in all areas,” Georgiou said. “The question is who pays for it? The affected community? The government? The companies involved?”

Karen, Alice and I demonstrate the wireless door bell in an approximately four-minute podcast.

Download, Play or Pause – Wireless Door Bell