11 ms·

Blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22

397 points by davidbarker 10y ago

danso 10y ago
> Castor told Apple reps how amazed she was by the iPad she received as a gift for her 17th birthday just a few years earlier. It raised her passion for tech to another level — mainly due to the iPad's immediate accessibility. Just goes to show how different things can be between perception and reality. I've worried that the move away from keyboard-based inputs would increase the marginalization of disabled computer users. Now that I think (more) about it, the physical form of a tablet can be similarly as interpretable as a keyboard, with the added bonus that app designers don't have the choice to build (and prioritize) a mouse-based interface -- I'm assuming that mouse-driven interfaces are especially difficult for the visually-impaired [0]. The uniformity of interface that iOS imposes is probably especially useful for the visually-impaired, provided that they have employees (like the one featured in the OP) who are on the engineering and design teams. [0] http://webaim.org/articles/visual/blind http://webaim.org/articles/visual/blind
- satysin 10y ago
  iOS has excellent assistive technology. A good friend of mine who is blind (not totally, can see shadows) adores his iPhone as it allows him to go out independently with ease. He can text and use Maps to get around in places he has never been before. He has said to me on multiple occasions how the iPhone literally changed his life. When I asked him to show me how he used it I was blown away at just how excellent the blind UX is in iOS.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  A blind guy I know loves android significantly more than any other platform. To him he can just run his finger over the screen to "feel" what's there by listening to a voice that is WAY too fast for me to even really understand. I've tried it myself (mostly to test out how some of our web apps work through that system) and it's actually pretty damn intuitive after you spend like 15 minutes getting the basics down.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Makes me wonder what could be done with a pressure sensitive screen and something like electrostatics to produce "texture".
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      Honestly I don't think that "textured" screens would help all that much, audio can just convey so much more information. For example, when you have the android accessibility stuff on, when you scroll in any kind of list, it makes these tones. They start at one pitch at the top, and end at another pitch at the bottom. After a bit of use, you start to intuitively understand where you are in the list just by the pitch it's making. Other things like vibrations for when you are hovering over important elements and more really lets you "see" what is there pretty well. What would improve it is something 3d-touch-esque. Being able to have a light touch be "hover" and a hard press be "touch" would make it much easier than the current system (IIRC it's double-tapping for touch, and other things like 2-fingers for scrolling)
    - 323454 10y ago
      What if you could produce braille on a touch screen?
      - bpicolo 10y ago
        There are a few such things out there, http://www.popsci.com/new-touch-screen-design-could-display-in-braille http://www.popsci.com/new-touch-screen-design-could-display-... The cost to produce them is probably very high, I imagine, especially when alternatives (like good audio/voice stuff) can do the job.
  - specialist 10y ago
    That's remarkable. Years ago, I imagined a mouse with haptic feedback. You'd feel it tock when your pointer passed over a boundary. Different sensations for different boundaries and areas. I didn't even think of some kind of braille like reading device. That'd be great.
- philbo 10y ago
  I saw a GREAT conference talk earlier this year that discussed a number of reasons why phones and tablets are so valuable for visually-impaired users. It's definitely worth watching if anyone is interested in the topic and can spare ~30 minutes: https://vimeo.com/album/3953264/video/165995026 https://vimeo.com/album/3953264/video/165995026
gok 10y ago
Everyone (especially sighted developers!) should try enabling a screen reader on their phone once in while. Of course it's great for finding accessibility bugs, but it's also a cool trick to be able to read emails and stuff without someone being able to look over your shoulder.
- jbicha 10y ago
  so they can listen over your shoulder instead? I guess you mean while using earbuds…
- kens 10y ago
  If you want to try the Android screen reader, turn on accessibility with Settings -> Accessibility, TalkBack On. Then, tap a control once to hear what it is, then double tap to activate. (This is very important to know, or else you won't be able to turn TalkBack off again.) Tip: don't try TalkBack in your office, or you will rapidly drive your officemates crazy.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    I have pondered trying to use talkback to operate my phone while i need my eyes elsewhere.
  - teamonkey 10y ago
    I often have to help a family member who is blind. Trying to use a phone with Voiceover or Talkback is the most horrific experience. Each button or key press takes 3 time-sensitive taps, while it speaks the contents of that button/key in a robotic voice. I say this as a sighted person, but is this really the best we can do? If you're blind I can imagine how important it is that it works at all, but it still sucks. Annoyingly, what my family member really needs for their use case is an old-style phone with tactile keyboard - if it weren't for the fact that they also need to voice dial, hear who's calling, and hear incoming texts.
andrewstuart2 10y ago
One thing that frustrates me significantly about accessibility and assistive technology (specifically for the web at least) is the lack of consistency implementing standards. It's much more insidious than most other standards inconsistencies because rather than your page looking slightly off in one browser, you can have your site reading perfectly on two of the major screen readers and the third refuses to read it. It's a massive waste of resources to find the right combination of tech that ends up magically working for all three. The running joke at my workplace is "fix JAWS, break VoiceOver; fix VoiceOver, break NVDA" etc. And yet it's not the kind of thing you want to let go because not many people will have the chance to switch to another device/reader to see if the site works there. Nor should they have to.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  In my experience, TalkBack works great. It is especially nice that in concert with Chromium's aria implementation, it also works quite well. The menace has been VoiceOver, which is inconsistent. In web views, VoiceOver segments incorrectly on elements and will regularly ignore aria labels. Not sure how well JAWS works, NVDA seems to work well enough, and I've admittedly not tried Orca with a web browser. Though honestly, I think that we should give up on trying to present exactly the same interface structure to people who are completely blind. An application design which works well for sighted people can easily seem incredibly convoluted when described by your screen reader. I've not had time to build out a framework for this, but I think it would not be hard to start delivering something better. The idea being that you would provide a structural description of interactions and content, and the framework would present this through whatever means is available on the platform. This way, in combination with platform detection, it will always present something functioning.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    I wrote up some ideas about a scriptable cross platform accessibility integration system called aQuery, like jQuery for Accessibility. http://donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/AQuery http://donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/AQuery Morgan Dixon did some wonderful work at the University of Washington called Prefab. Some of the links from my page to his papers are broken, but here's his web site and a demo: http://morgandixon.net/ http://morgandixon.net/ https://prefab.github.io/ https://prefab.github.io/ Prefab: The Pixel-Based Reverse Engineering Toolkit Prefab is a system for reverse engineering the interface structure of graphical interfaces from their pixels. In other words, Prefab looks at the pixels of an existing interface and returns a tree structure, like a web-page's Document Object Model, that you can then use to modify the original interface in some way. Prefab works from example images of widgets; it decomposes those widgets into small parts, and exactly matches those parts in screenshots of an interface. Prefab does this many times per second to help you modify interfaces in real time. Imagine if you could modify any graphical interface? With Prefab, you can explore this question! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4S5ZtnaUKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4S5ZtnaUKE Imagine if every interface was open source. Any of us could modify the software we use every day. Unfortunately, we don't have the source. Prefab realizes this vision using only the pixels of everyday interfaces. This video shows how we advanced the capabilities of Prefab to understand interface content and hierarchy. We use Prefab to add new functionality to Microsoft Word, Skype, and Google Chrome. These demonstrations show how Prefab can be used to translate the language of interfaces, add tutorials to interfaces, and add or remove content from interfaces solely from their pixels. Prefab represents a new approach to deploying HCI research in everyday software, and is also the first step toward a future where anybody can modify any interface.
michael-the1 10y ago
This thread comes at a funny time. I just saw my cousin and roommate come back from surgery. He had the same surgery before in one eye, now he's impaired the other as well. Now it's just waiting and hoping for recovery. The thing he wants to do the most, in his current blinds state, is not rely on other people. Accessibility allows him to be that independent, empowered person. Thank you to everyone who furthers that cause.
escapologybb 10y ago
There's a lot to gripe about with Apple, but not when it comes to accessibility. I am quadriplegic and usually that means putting up with some terrible subset of functions for any given application, tablet, phone or whatever but not with Apple. They've made it so that anything able-bodied person can do with an iPhone, I can do with their Switch Control interface which I use connected up to the chin controller on my wheelchair. It's all done via a little Bluetooth bridge called a Tecla shield and it's absolutely marvellous. There really isn't another company in the world, certainly not another phone Manufacturer that has thought of people with motor skill problems in the way that Apple has. When people think of accessibility they think of the blind and that deaf, people with motor function problems are definitely the red-headed stepchildren of the accessibility software world. Apple, pay your fng taxes but thank you very very very much for the accessibility software, my life would be much much poorer intellectually without it.
- melling 10y ago
  i'm disappointed that we haven't made more progress with voice interfaces. Many people are happy with the keyboard/mouse as their primary input devices but combined with subtle gestures like you might get with Google's Soli and we should get a better user interface for everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0
  - gurkendoktor 10y ago
    Good trackpads/touchpads with gestures aren't that far away from Soli, once you accept that people are lazy and don't want to fight gravity with their hands.
    - melling 10y ago
      How's that going to work with VR?
- tezza 10y ago
  Microsoft also deserves applause in the accessibility stakes. My cousin's child is quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and a lot of his eye controlled tech runs on Windows
mattbgates 10y ago
I have quite a few blind readers to my website at http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com. I'm not sure if they came before or after I made the decision when starting the website to write out every single infographic in detail with a text-friendly version. It takes me an extra 10-20 minutes, depending on the length of the infographic, when I'm processing my articles, but it has its advantages for both readers and SEO. It was actually unintentional when I started doing it and I had only done it with search engines in mind, because they can't read infographics, and I wanted them to be able to categorize the article better. Turns out, there are hundreds to thousands of people who also can't read infographics. The side effect was that it began attracting a good amount of people who just need everything written out for good reason. Not just the blind, but I have gotten emails from non-blind people who are autistic, dyslexic, or just have trouble reading who use e-readers both on computer and mobile devices thanking me for doing it. Highly recommended for everyone to start taking the handicapped into mind when it comes to the Internet. EVERYONE is using the Internet. Handicapped, blind.. they aren't just sitting there twittling their thumbs. They are searching the Internet!
dvillega 10y ago
This reminds me of the "SignAloud" gloves that vocalize American Sign Language. http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/thomas-pryor-and-navid-azodi http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/thomas-pryor-and-navid-azodi It's exciting to think about how tech is unlocking accessibility barriers. Huge :+1: to Apple for innovating in the accessibility space.
samfisher83 10y ago
In the article it mentioned 70% of blind people are unemployed. That seems like a big problem.
nxzero 10y ago
Apple's accessibility features even useful as workarounds for hardware failure. If one of the buttons fails, turning on the accessibility features to: on/off, screen-lock, volume, etc.
- stephenr 10y ago
  The assistive touch widget on my iPhone has meant I can wait a little before replacing it (failed home button). It gets more extreme here in Thailand though - my sister in law and mother in law, (and I am led to believe, a lot of other people) use the assistive touch widget exclusively, instead of using the working home button, as they don't want the hardware button to break/wear out. I don't quite understand the logic myself, but its definitely a thing.
  - gurkendoktor 10y ago
    Same in Taiwan, everyone seems to use Assistive Touch there. I guess it's a bit like force-killing all apps before putting your phone away. It feels good to invest some effort into taking care of your expensive device.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    It's the iOS equivalent of never removing the protective film from the factory. Keeps your device looking pristine, too bad you never get to actually see it.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      I've seen people here with 5+ year old TV's with the promotional stickers still on them, obscuring part of the screen.
- jscholes 10y ago
  Glad I'm not the only one who thought of this. I'm a VoiceOver user (totally blind), but when my lock/power button broke on my iPhone it took me a while to figure out that I could just use assistive touch to avoid having to buy a new phone.
tommynicholas 10y ago
Was just talking about this yesterday with my newly blind friend. The unemployment rate among the blind is at least 63% right now. It's remarkable.
mankash666 10y ago
Just noting that if accessibility was front and center, the tablet wouldn't be priced exorbitantly. Let's take this for what it is, good PR
- freshyill 10y ago
  That's an extremely cynical take.
  - mankash666 10y ago
    Sad, but true. There couldn't be a better PR plug than this for Apple, as they continue to price their products outside the affordability of the disabled. If 70% of the blind are unemployed, how can they afford an iPad?
    - ams6110 10y ago
      They are probably getting disability benefits, and there are many private charities that assist the blind. Very likely that a blind person who needs a tablet or PC can get one at minimal to zero cost.
    - rimantas 10y ago
      Go check the price of JAWS. By your logic anyone making great is just doing that for PR.
      - jscholes 10y ago
        > Go check the price of JAWS. By your logic anyone making great is just doing that for PR. Worth noting, perhaps, that very few blind people actually own a JAWS license that they paid for themselves. The majority[citation needed] either get grants from charities, financial help if they're in work or studying, or use a pirated copy.
quakerquickoats 10y ago
this is marketing tactics. how would she know if the ipad she received is working great out of the box? seriously, our screens are not yet tactile or programmably textured or termperatured yet. she should work on that stuff perhaps.
- escapologybb 10y ago
  Just curious, but have you tried a brand-new iDevice out-of-the-box as a disabled person? I have. I am quadriplegic and within five minutes of help from a able-bodied person, I had as much access to my iPhone as any able-bodied person does. Sometimes good news is just good news.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
javajosh 10y ago
A bit of a technical question about blind people, especially birth-blind people. Does the spatiality of the screen cease to be a factor? How do they "visualize" internally a computer interface, especially a GUI one? Thanks.
WalterBright 10y ago
Apple is doing great things here. I welcome feedback and suggestions from any visually impaired programmer that can improve the usability of the D programming language website for them. dlang.org
necessity 10y ago
Could we get a less descriptive title? Not clicking on clickbaits.
rmason 10y ago
Though I never met her when she was at Michigan State, I've got a number of friends that did and she was a rockstar developer at the school even as an undergrad. She gets mentioned on my Twitter on at least a monthly basis and it's kind of neat to see someone who was once a local on the front page of HN.
- jscholes 10y ago
  > rockstar developer Could you expand a little on what you mean by this?
  - tamana 10y ago
    It means "exceptionally good, and known for it"
samnwa 10y ago
Is "transforming the tech world" a bit strong? I get turned off by all this headline hyperbole.
- Mao_Zedang 10y ago
  "Apple hires blind woman" would be a much fairer title.
alannallama 10y ago
If any developers are thinking about getting started with accessibility, I would definitely encourage you to! Here's a short video of my co-founder talking about our journey with this in our startup, and how you can take some first steps: https://youtu.be/g0bjrTCKxZw https://youtu.be/g0bjrTCKxZw
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Great article. I became interested in how blind programmers work when a blind programmer emailed me about 20 years ago with some questions about the code in my book Portable GUI Applications with C++. Apple, and other companies who support people with disabilities, deserve a lot of credit, but people who work through their disabilities greatly impress me.
newscracker 10y ago
This reminds me of a few things with respect to Apple and accessibility (listed in chronological order here). * In a speech Tim Cook made in December 2013 on receiving the "International Quality of Life Awards" at Auburn University [1] (link goes to the exact time in the video when this was said): > "These values guide us to make our products accessible for everyone. People with disabilities often find themselves in a struggle to have their human dignity acknowledged, they frequently are left in the shadows of technological advancements that are a source of empowerment and attainment for others, but Apple’s engineers push back against this unacceptable reality, they go to extraordinary lengths to make our products accessible to people with various disabilities from blindness and deafness to various muscular disorders." * In early 2014, in the context of an NCPPR representative asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to "commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable", this is how Tim Cook responded [2]: > When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." * In July 2015, marking 25 years of the "Americans with Disability Act", Tim Cook tweeted: [3] > "Accessibility rights are human rights. Celebrating 25yrs of the ADA, we’re humbled to improve lives with our products. #ADA25" Regardless of profit motives and the higher prices of iDevices (in comparison to others), Apple is leading on a few different fronts, one of them being accessibility and its commitment to improving it continuously. This kind of inclusivity, which should be a default, is what progress of humankind is about. [1]: https://youtu.be/dNEafGCf-kw?t=272 https://youtu.be/dNEafGCf-kw?t=272 [2]: https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rej... [3]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/624584736862679040 https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/624584736862679040

397 points by davidbarker 10y ago

danso 10y ago

> Castor told Apple reps how amazed she was by the iPad she received as a gift for her 17th birthday just a few years earlier. It raised her passion for tech to another level — mainly due to the iPad's immediate accessibility. Just goes to show how different things can be between perception and reality. I've worried that the move away from keyboard-based inputs would increase the marginalization of disabled computer users. Now that I think (more) about it, the physical form of a tablet can be similarly as interpretable as a keyboard, with the added bonus that app designers don't have the choice to build (and prioritize) a mouse-based interface -- I'm assuming that mouse-driven interfaces are especially difficult for the visually-impaired [0]. The uniformity of interface that iOS imposes is probably especially useful for the visually-impaired, provided that they have employees (like the one featured in the OP) who are on the engineering and design teams. [0] http://webaim.org/articles/visual/blind http://webaim.org/articles/visual/blind

satysin 10y ago
iOS has excellent assistive technology. A good friend of mine who is blind (not totally, can see shadows) adores his iPhone as it allows him to go out independently with ease. He can text and use Maps to get around in places he has never been before. He has said to me on multiple occasions how the iPhone literally changed his life. When I asked him to show me how he used it I was blown away at just how excellent the blind UX is in iOS.
Klathmon 10y ago
A blind guy I know loves android significantly more than any other platform. To him he can just run his finger over the screen to "feel" what's there by listening to a voice that is WAY too fast for me to even really understand. I've tried it myself (mostly to test out how some of our web apps work through that system) and it's actually pretty damn intuitive after you spend like 15 minutes getting the basics down.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Makes me wonder what could be done with a pressure sensitive screen and something like electrostatics to produce "texture".
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    Honestly I don't think that "textured" screens would help all that much, audio can just convey so much more information. For example, when you have the android accessibility stuff on, when you scroll in any kind of list, it makes these tones. They start at one pitch at the top, and end at another pitch at the bottom. After a bit of use, you start to intuitively understand where you are in the list just by the pitch it's making. Other things like vibrations for when you are hovering over important elements and more really lets you "see" what is there pretty well. What would improve it is something 3d-touch-esque. Being able to have a light touch be "hover" and a hard press be "touch" would make it much easier than the current system (IIRC it's double-tapping for touch, and other things like 2-fingers for scrolling)
  - 323454 10y ago
    What if you could produce braille on a touch screen?
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      There are a few such things out there, http://www.popsci.com/new-touch-screen-design-could-display-in-braille http://www.popsci.com/new-touch-screen-design-could-display-... The cost to produce them is probably very high, I imagine, especially when alternatives (like good audio/voice stuff) can do the job.
- specialist 10y ago
  That's remarkable. Years ago, I imagined a mouse with haptic feedback. You'd feel it tock when your pointer passed over a boundary. Different sensations for different boundaries and areas. I didn't even think of some kind of braille like reading device. That'd be great.
philbo 10y ago
I saw a GREAT conference talk earlier this year that discussed a number of reasons why phones and tablets are so valuable for visually-impaired users. It's definitely worth watching if anyone is interested in the topic and can spare ~30 minutes: https://vimeo.com/album/3953264/video/165995026 https://vimeo.com/album/3953264/video/165995026

gok 10y ago

Everyone (especially sighted developers!) should try enabling a screen reader on their phone once in while. Of course it's great for finding accessibility bugs, but it's also a cool trick to be able to read emails and stuff without someone being able to look over your shoulder.

jbicha 10y ago
so they can listen over your shoulder instead? I guess you mean while using earbuds…
kens 10y ago
If you want to try the Android screen reader, turn on accessibility with Settings -> Accessibility, TalkBack On. Then, tap a control once to hear what it is, then double tap to activate. (This is very important to know, or else you won't be able to turn TalkBack off again.) Tip: don't try TalkBack in your office, or you will rapidly drive your officemates crazy.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I have pondered trying to use talkback to operate my phone while i need my eyes elsewhere.
- teamonkey 10y ago
  I often have to help a family member who is blind. Trying to use a phone with Voiceover or Talkback is the most horrific experience. Each button or key press takes 3 time-sensitive taps, while it speaks the contents of that button/key in a robotic voice. I say this as a sighted person, but is this really the best we can do? If you're blind I can imagine how important it is that it works at all, but it still sucks. Annoyingly, what my family member really needs for their use case is an old-style phone with tactile keyboard - if it weren't for the fact that they also need to voice dial, hear who's calling, and hear incoming texts.

andrewstuart2 10y ago

One thing that frustrates me significantly about accessibility and assistive technology (specifically for the web at least) is the lack of consistency implementing standards. It's much more insidious than most other standards inconsistencies because rather than your page looking slightly off in one browser, you can have your site reading perfectly on two of the major screen readers and the third refuses to read it. It's a massive waste of resources to find the right combination of tech that ends up magically working for all three. The running joke at my workplace is "fix JAWS, break VoiceOver; fix VoiceOver, break NVDA" etc. And yet it's not the kind of thing you want to let go because not many people will have the chance to switch to another device/reader to see if the site works there. Nor should they have to.

microcolonel 10y ago
In my experience, TalkBack works great. It is especially nice that in concert with Chromium's aria implementation, it also works quite well. The menace has been VoiceOver, which is inconsistent. In web views, VoiceOver segments incorrectly on elements and will regularly ignore aria labels. Not sure how well JAWS works, NVDA seems to work well enough, and I've admittedly not tried Orca with a web browser. Though honestly, I think that we should give up on trying to present exactly the same interface structure to people who are completely blind. An application design which works well for sighted people can easily seem incredibly convoluted when described by your screen reader. I've not had time to build out a framework for this, but I think it would not be hard to start delivering something better. The idea being that you would provide a structural description of interactions and content, and the framework would present this through whatever means is available on the platform. This way, in combination with platform detection, it will always present something functioning.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  I wrote up some ideas about a scriptable cross platform accessibility integration system called aQuery, like jQuery for Accessibility. http://donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/AQuery http://donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/AQuery Morgan Dixon did some wonderful work at the University of Washington called Prefab. Some of the links from my page to his papers are broken, but here's his web site and a demo: http://morgandixon.net/ http://morgandixon.net/ https://prefab.github.io/ https://prefab.github.io/ Prefab: The Pixel-Based Reverse Engineering Toolkit Prefab is a system for reverse engineering the interface structure of graphical interfaces from their pixels. In other words, Prefab looks at the pixels of an existing interface and returns a tree structure, like a web-page's Document Object Model, that you can then use to modify the original interface in some way. Prefab works from example images of widgets; it decomposes those widgets into small parts, and exactly matches those parts in screenshots of an interface. Prefab does this many times per second to help you modify interfaces in real time. Imagine if you could modify any graphical interface? With Prefab, you can explore this question! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4S5ZtnaUKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4S5ZtnaUKE Imagine if every interface was open source. Any of us could modify the software we use every day. Unfortunately, we don't have the source. Prefab realizes this vision using only the pixels of everyday interfaces. This video shows how we advanced the capabilities of Prefab to understand interface content and hierarchy. We use Prefab to add new functionality to Microsoft Word, Skype, and Google Chrome. These demonstrations show how Prefab can be used to translate the language of interfaces, add tutorials to interfaces, and add or remove content from interfaces solely from their pixels. Prefab represents a new approach to deploying HCI research in everyday software, and is also the first step toward a future where anybody can modify any interface.

michael-the1 10y ago

This thread comes at a funny time. I just saw my cousin and roommate come back from surgery. He had the same surgery before in one eye, now he's impaired the other as well. Now it's just waiting and hoping for recovery. The thing he wants to do the most, in his current blinds state, is not rely on other people. Accessibility allows him to be that independent, empowered person. Thank you to everyone who furthers that cause.

escapologybb 10y ago

There's a lot to gripe about with Apple, but not when it comes to accessibility. I am quadriplegic and usually that means putting up with some terrible subset of functions for any given application, tablet, phone or whatever but not with Apple. They've made it so that anything able-bodied person can do with an iPhone, I can do with their Switch Control interface which I use connected up to the chin controller on my wheelchair. It's all done via a little Bluetooth bridge called a Tecla shield and it's absolutely marvellous. There really isn't another company in the world, certainly not another phone Manufacturer that has thought of people with motor skill problems in the way that Apple has. When people think of accessibility they think of the blind and that deaf, people with motor function problems are definitely the red-headed stepchildren of the accessibility software world. Apple, pay your fng taxes but thank you very very very much for the accessibility software, my life would be much much poorer intellectually without it.

melling 10y ago
i'm disappointed that we haven't made more progress with voice interfaces. Many people are happy with the keyboard/mouse as their primary input devices but combined with subtle gestures like you might get with Google's Soli and we should get a better user interface for everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  Good trackpads/touchpads with gestures aren't that far away from Soli, once you accept that people are lazy and don't want to fight gravity with their hands.
  - melling 10y ago
    How's that going to work with VR?
tezza 10y ago
Microsoft also deserves applause in the accessibility stakes. My cousin's child is quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and a lot of his eye controlled tech runs on Windows

mattbgates 10y ago

I have quite a few blind readers to my website at http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com. I'm not sure if they came before or after I made the decision when starting the website to write out every single infographic in detail with a text-friendly version. It takes me an extra 10-20 minutes, depending on the length of the infographic, when I'm processing my articles, but it has its advantages for both readers and SEO. It was actually unintentional when I started doing it and I had only done it with search engines in mind, because they can't read infographics, and I wanted them to be able to categorize the article better. Turns out, there are hundreds to thousands of people who also can't read infographics. The side effect was that it began attracting a good amount of people who just need everything written out for good reason. Not just the blind, but I have gotten emails from non-blind people who are autistic, dyslexic, or just have trouble reading who use e-readers both on computer and mobile devices thanking me for doing it. Highly recommended for everyone to start taking the handicapped into mind when it comes to the Internet. EVERYONE is using the Internet. Handicapped, blind.. they aren't just sitting there twittling their thumbs. They are searching the Internet!

dvillega 10y ago

This reminds me of the "SignAloud" gloves that vocalize American Sign Language. http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/thomas-pryor-and-navid-azodi http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/thomas-pryor-and-navid-azodi It's exciting to think about how tech is unlocking accessibility barriers. Huge :+1: to Apple for innovating in the accessibility space.

samfisher83 10y ago

In the article it mentioned 70% of blind people are unemployed. That seems like a big problem.

nxzero 10y ago

Apple's accessibility features even useful as workarounds for hardware failure. If one of the buttons fails, turning on the accessibility features to: on/off, screen-lock, volume, etc.

stephenr 10y ago
The assistive touch widget on my iPhone has meant I can wait a little before replacing it (failed home button). It gets more extreme here in Thailand though - my sister in law and mother in law, (and I am led to believe, a lot of other people) use the assistive touch widget exclusively, instead of using the working home button, as they don't want the hardware button to break/wear out. I don't quite understand the logic myself, but its definitely a thing.
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  Same in Taiwan, everyone seems to use Assistive Touch there. I guess it's a bit like force-killing all apps before putting your phone away. It feels good to invest some effort into taking care of your expensive device.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  It's the iOS equivalent of never removing the protective film from the factory. Keeps your device looking pristine, too bad you never get to actually see it.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    I've seen people here with 5+ year old TV's with the promotional stickers still on them, obscuring part of the screen.
jscholes 10y ago
Glad I'm not the only one who thought of this. I'm a VoiceOver user (totally blind), but when my lock/power button broke on my iPhone it took me a while to figure out that I could just use assistive touch to avoid having to buy a new phone.

tommynicholas 10y ago

Was just talking about this yesterday with my newly blind friend. The unemployment rate among the blind is at least 63% right now. It's remarkable.

mankash666 10y ago

Just noting that if accessibility was front and center, the tablet wouldn't be priced exorbitantly. Let's take this for what it is, good PR

freshyill 10y ago
That's an extremely cynical take.
- mankash666 10y ago
  Sad, but true. There couldn't be a better PR plug than this for Apple, as they continue to price their products outside the affordability of the disabled. If 70% of the blind are unemployed, how can they afford an iPad?
  - ams6110 10y ago
    They are probably getting disability benefits, and there are many private charities that assist the blind. Very likely that a blind person who needs a tablet or PC can get one at minimal to zero cost.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    Go check the price of JAWS. By your logic anyone making great is just doing that for PR.
    - jscholes 10y ago
      > Go check the price of JAWS. By your logic anyone making great is just doing that for PR. Worth noting, perhaps, that very few blind people actually own a JAWS license that they paid for themselves. The majority[citation needed] either get grants from charities, financial help if they're in work or studying, or use a pirated copy.

quakerquickoats 10y ago

this is marketing tactics. how would she know if the ipad she received is working great out of the box? seriously, our screens are not yet tactile or programmably textured or termperatured yet. she should work on that stuff perhaps.

escapologybb 10y ago
Just curious, but have you tried a brand-new iDevice out-of-the-box as a disabled person? I have. I am quadriplegic and within five minutes of help from a able-bodied person, I had as much access to my iPhone as any able-bodied person does. Sometimes good news is just good news.

deleted 10y ago

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javajosh 10y ago

A bit of a technical question about blind people, especially birth-blind people. Does the spatiality of the screen cease to be a factor? How do they "visualize" internally a computer interface, especially a GUI one? Thanks.

WalterBright 10y ago

Apple is doing great things here. I welcome feedback and suggestions from any visually impaired programmer that can improve the usability of the D programming language website for them. dlang.org

necessity 10y ago

Could we get a less descriptive title? Not clicking on clickbaits.

rmason 10y ago

Though I never met her when she was at Michigan State, I've got a number of friends that did and she was a rockstar developer at the school even as an undergrad. She gets mentioned on my Twitter on at least a monthly basis and it's kind of neat to see someone who was once a local on the front page of HN.

jscholes 10y ago
> rockstar developer Could you expand a little on what you mean by this?
- tamana 10y ago
  It means "exceptionally good, and known for it"

samnwa 10y ago

Is "transforming the tech world" a bit strong? I get turned off by all this headline hyperbole.

Mao_Zedang 10y ago
"Apple hires blind woman" would be a much fairer title.

alannallama 10y ago

If any developers are thinking about getting started with accessibility, I would definitely encourage you to! Here's a short video of my co-founder talking about our journey with this in our startup, and how you can take some first steps: https://youtu.be/g0bjrTCKxZw https://youtu.be/g0bjrTCKxZw

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Great article. I became interested in how blind programmers work when a blind programmer emailed me about 20 years ago with some questions about the code in my book Portable GUI Applications with C++. Apple, and other companies who support people with disabilities, deserve a lot of credit, but people who work through their disabilities greatly impress me.

newscracker 10y ago

This reminds me of a few things with respect to Apple and accessibility (listed in chronological order here). * In a speech Tim Cook made in December 2013 on receiving the "International Quality of Life Awards" at Auburn University [1] (link goes to the exact time in the video when this was said): > "These values guide us to make our products accessible for everyone. People with disabilities often find themselves in a struggle to have their human dignity acknowledged, they frequently are left in the shadows of technological advancements that are a source of empowerment and attainment for others, but Apple’s engineers push back against this unacceptable reality, they go to extraordinary lengths to make our products accessible to people with various disabilities from blindness and deafness to various muscular disorders." * In early 2014, in the context of an NCPPR representative asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to "commit right then and there to doing only those things that were profitable", this is how Tim Cook responded [2]: > When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." * In July 2015, marking 25 years of the "Americans with Disability Act", Tim Cook tweeted: [3] > "Accessibility rights are human rights. Celebrating 25yrs of the ADA, we’re humbled to improve lives with our products. #ADA25" Regardless of profit motives and the higher prices of iDevices (in comparison to others), Apple is leading on a few different fronts, one of them being accessibility and its commitment to improving it continuously. This kind of inclusivity, which should be a default, is what progress of humankind is about. [1]: https://youtu.be/dNEafGCf-kw?t=272 https://youtu.be/dNEafGCf-kw?t=272 [2]: https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rej... [3]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/624584736862679040 https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/624584736862679040