[nabs-l] New Technology and Blindness

[Nicole B. Torcolini at Home]

It continues to amaze me in how inaccessible new technologies can be. I don't think that the people who design them are purposefully making them inaccessible, but it is still very frustrating. For example, I just read a paper about a virtual nurse agent that is designed to help patients understand medical information before being discharged from the hospital. Although the system does talk, it has several other features, including a touchscreen and pointing at places in a print booklet, which would be completely inaccessible to the blind. My question then is, besides educating people about blindness, is there something else that could be done? For example, should there be a law that all touch screen devices have to be accessible or have an option for accessibility?
The paper can be found at:
http://relationalagents.com/publications/CHI09.VirtualNurse.pdf

Nicole