Where It's AT – Assistive Technology Blog

AT in the news for the week of 5/28 – 6/1

Vision system helps the visually impaired view presentations – Vision Systems Design:

New technologies revolutionize prosthetic devices – Plastics Today

Hutson school gave 75 Kindles to students with dyslexia

Katie Beckett Defied The Odds, Helped Other Disabled Kids Live Longer

Wake Forest University engineer gives back to disability community through app creation

COGNO 2.0 — Designed for the human mind. The next generation of technology design.

Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital regenerate optic nerve in mice

Vision system comes to the aid of the visually impaired – Vision Systems Design:

Innovative Prosthetic Foot Wins Prestigious Medical Design Award – Virtual-Strategy Magazine

Medicare recently established the online Supplier Directory, an easy-to-use online directory to search for a variety of services in your neighborhood, including identifying vendors of DME and medical supplies, mobility devices, and more. To start your search, visit the Medicare Supplier Directory online.

Icons vs. Text

Icons can present complex information, meaning, and functionality in a very small amount of space. A browser’s “Home” icon (typically an illustration of a house) readily conveys rather complex meaning and functionality – activating it will take you to the browser’s defined home page. While such icons can be very useful, care must also be taken to ensure that the icon is understandable to the end user and reflects well-known conventions. The floppy disk icon, for example, is used for “Save”, yet the real-world connection between saving a file and an actual floppy disk (something that is rarely seen and no longer produced) is not present for many people, particularly newcomers to the web and youth. Real text (“Home” or “Save”) should be used in place of an icon, or perhaps in conjunction with an icon.

Braille Business Cards

Everyone likes Braille business cards.  Sighted people think they’re cool and blind people obviously find them useful. The word to keep in mind when thinking of getting your business cards Brailled is “compromise”.

On your average printed business card, you can have a ton of information.  In addition to a corporate logo, a QR code and your business name,there could be a few phone numbers, a contact person, an e-mail address, and a Website address–let’s not forget your physical address  and possibly your Grand Mother’s  cookie recipe.  Alas, there will be no Brailled cookie recipe, and that tactile version of your logo, probably not happening either.

The standard business card can hold a very small amount of Brailled information.  Specifically, 4 lines of 13 characters each. So, it boils down to what you can fit into 52 characters.  Generally, this is some combination of a name, either personal or corporate (rarely both), a phone number and a Web address.  Of the half dozen different cards I just checked, only 1 had an e-mail address.  Two of them had local and toll-free numbers and none of them had the title of the individual who just handed me their card.

The good news is that there are no rules.  A Braille reader understands these limitations, and hence will understand why some of the niceties, such as the extra Braille characters designating capitalization or the abbreviation of a company name to just a few letters is necessary. If your ego can handle the strain, perhaps consider just this once, using Bob instead of Robert.

If you don’t know Braille yourself, it’s good to have a quick sanity check from a Braille reader.  I have seen many business cards with mistakes.  Sometimes it’s formatting, other times it can be a spelling error which looks terribly unprofessional.  Then there are those problems which show up in communication.  Your “theatre” could become a “theater” and you might find you’ve been handing out faulty cards for the last 6 months.  Many Braille services can be found online.  It’s best to talk with someone, double check and have the final product thoroughly examined.

Because of the upcoming Memorial Day holiday, we’re wrapping up the news a little early. But don’t despair, there’s no lack of AT articles in the news this week, 5/21 – 5/24. Just check out some of the links below:

Microsoft builds Kinectacles, Kinect Bridge for the blind and speech impaired

Mobility: This Amazing Device Just Made Wheelchairs Obsolete for Paraplegics

UC students design a better pill bottle for the blind and visually impaired

12-year-old amputee tells Vets how prosthetics can help lead to a normal life

Anthony Smith, Hearing-Impaired Boy, Gets Custom Superhero, ‘The Blue Ear,’ From Marvel Comics

iPhone 5 to Have Larger Display, Steve Jobs Worked Closely on Design Before Death

My Name Is Not Bob: Writing Blind: How Blind People Manage to Write

Virtual World Offers New Approach To Tackling Autism

Insignia Announces The Narrator, its First Talking HD Radio(TM) Product, Coming in July

University of Nevada, Reno, scientists design indoor navigation system for blind

Play Accessible Textbooks on Your iPhone with Learning Ally Audio

In a Digital Age, Braille Is Still Important | GeekMom |

Stroke Victims Think, Robotic Arm Acts – NPR

Sensory Rooms Transport Students With Special Needs – Education Week News

Cognitive Load vs. Functionality

Cognitive load is the amount of mental effort required to engage in a process. On a web page, clutter, animation, confusing content, background sounds, complex information, and other aspects of poor accessibility and usability increase cognitive load. Try to provide necessary functionality while minimizing cognitive load. This can be particularly difficult on site home pages where much functionality is provided, which generally results in a very high cognitive load. Good usability and accessibility techniques, often as identified in user testing, can help site authors maintain necessary functionality while decreasing the cognitive load.