[nabs-l] New Technology and Blindness

[Mike Freeman]

Nicole:

NFB's proposed Technology Bill of Rights might well cover this situation.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Nicole B. Torcolini at Home
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 3:33 PM
To: NABS-L
Subject: [nabs-l] New Technology and Blindness

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
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