Sensory Disability and Apps as Assistive Technology

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 22:52:42 -0500
accessibility, accommodation, app, apple, blackboard, blind, captions, deaf, disability, google, handicap, hearing, impairment, live, lookout, maps, microsoft, mobility, transcribe, translator

When Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago wrote the novel Blindness in 1995, he highlighted how losing sight can bring out the best (and worst) in people. Technology has evolved since those days before smart phones and ubiquitous personal technology. Today, the drive for ideal inclusive technology is advancing to assist people with disabilities in all aspects of daily life, not just work and school. This progress, not unlike the book's quest to triumph over adversity, is a quest to overcome privilege toward universal design. For the uninitiated these tools might be hiding in plain sight. A broad sampling of this progress from several major developers include:

Google apps that create accessibility in the digital world and beyond, such as:

Live Transcribe (link), which provides speech captioning

Lookout, which helps people with visual impairments learn about their surroundings.

Additionally voice guidance in Google Maps helps people with visual impairments get to their destinations with more confidence with this linked article.

Explore Wakana Sugiyama's experience with this linked video.

Microsoft's accessibility supports include:

Translator and an other audio/hearing technology supports

Color filters, Tell Me, Soundscapes, Narrator, Magnifier and other visual tech options

Apple's embedded assistive technology include:

Voiceover, color filters and Magnifier for accessing visual content

LiveListen for assistive listening

FaceTime for ASL communication

Voice Control and Switch Control as mobility options.

UMBC's Blackboard learning management system has Ally as a support for accessible online course materials. Instructional Technology has training for faculty and staff posted on their myUMBC site.

Thumbnail image: Black and white photo of sculpture depicting a line of four squatting humans with each person's hands covering the eyes and ears of the person in front of them.