Disabilities

Thomas Hayes

Hi Everyone, Awhile back I started a tread about dealing with the disable and how new laws affect us in design, programming etc. In this tread I asked if there was any type of brail TP. Today at lunch we were talking about this issue again and instead of a brail TP I thought of a TP or a TP add-on that would track the users finger position and if they remain in a location for X-seconds there would be a generated voice that would tell the user what if any function was at that location. There would be a learning curve for the user but could prove to be a very good solution in the long run. Any input would be helpful. The orginal thread was in the education section but I decided to post this here for more people would see it and maybe comment.

DHawthorne

I notice the local ATM's all have Braille labels on the keypad buttons, and a headphone jack. Perhaps a hybrid solution like that would work - normal panel for the sighted, and a button bank of some sort (MSP would be too small I think, you would need to be creative) that can be navigated via voice prompts.

Your idea of making the panel "talk" might work, but I think it would be very awkward "scanning" a panel by touch to find the spot with the function you are looking for. Something as small as a keypad can be covered without moving the hand around very much, and if the voice prompts are along the lines of, "Press button 1 to continue," it would be more useable. You could probably find something pre-made with an RS-232 interface, like a DTMF keypad, and then you would only need to supply the voice prompts, which could be done with any MPEG type playback device with RS-232 control.

Braille labels would also, I think, need to be in metal; anything in plastic that gets heavy use will wear down too fast.

Thomas Hayes

Your right Dave, the technology isn't developed enough yet to handle the scanning and speech at a fast enough speed to work. I had seen awhile back a device that scanned the users eye position and if they stopped long enough on a located then that command would be executed, this is were I got the idea to track the users finger movement. Back to the Brail reader that would interface into the AMX.