

Blind user of the iPhone - flapjack
http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-first-week-with-the-iphone/

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greengarstudios
I created the Color ID app described by the user.

It's very rewarding to see that someone has found our app useful. The app was,
in fact, originally intended for the (color) blind. It grew out of SS12: Code
for a Cause ( <http://ss12.info/> ), a coding competition where the goal is to
create software for the disabled.

The whimsical color names made me think that the app would be less useful for
the colorblind, as most people don't understand colors like "Cosmic" and
"Hippie Green." So I thought the app would be mostly used as a toy; a fun way
to see what the "color" of your friend's face is ("Tacao"!). But this blog
post makes me realize that what started almost as an accident, actually ends
up being pretty awesome ("a very psychedelic experience").

BTW, the app's name in the App Store is "Color Identifier". It appears as
"Color ID" on your home screen. I'm certain he's talking about my app because
mine is the only one (AFAICT) that reads color names aloud, and also contains
all of the color names that he mentions in the blog post.

For those interested in the app, here's an affiliate link to see it in iTunes:
<http://bit.ly/CIDHaN> (it's 99¢)

Let me know what you think. I love hearing from users of my apps :)

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modeless
Wow, if speaking names of colors is such a huge deal to him, imagine how he'd
feel about an app that could read text aloud using the camera!

I wonder if you could also make an app that would generate sounds from the
camera in a way that would allow a blind person to "see" with their ears. What
if you took a line across the image and used the intensities as input to an
inverse FFT, what would that sound like?

~~~
mortenjorck
Ok, startup idea:

Inspired by the lovely scene from the movie Amélie where the titular character
takes a blind man by the hand and describes in detail how the town square
looks.

Imagine an app. Blind user uses app to take a photo and instantly send an
image to a mechanical Turk service which describes the photo and returns an
audio file.

This could even be done without smartphones (albeit less seamlessly). Blind
user takes a photo with a cameraphone and sends it to an MMS number. User then
receives a call from a call center where an agent describes the photo.

~~~
sahillavingia
Wow, that is awesome. I'm doing it. Starting now. When it's done, it'll be
free - if I can afford it.

Thanks for the brilliant idea I hope I do it justice.

~~~
sahillavingia
A followup: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/862869303/an-iphone-
app-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/862869303/an-iphone-app-for-the-
blind)

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waterside81
Fantastic story and a great reminder to developers to be mindful of
accessibility issues. I've worked on a project for the VA (Veteran Affairs) in
Los Angeles and I had to consciously keep asking myself "How would a visually
impaired user interact with this? How would somebody with limited mobility use
this?". It really makes you think about your design and your markup (in the
case of a web app).

For developers interested in accessibility issues and the various
requirements, check out <http://www.section508.gov>

~~~
bryanh
Oddly enough, I had a blind customer call me to ask something about my service
BitBuffet. She sold music online through us and took a minute after I solved
her problem to tell me how great my site was for the blind.

I had no idea! I just follow most best practices for the web, but it really
made my day to know I helped her do something she always wanted to do! Warm
fuzzies indeed.

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ludwigvan
By the way, he solved his major complaint in the article, iTunes. He simply
switched to mac a week ago: [http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/09/11/rejoining-
the-apple-fa...](http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/09/11/rejoining-the-apple-
family/)

Beautiful article, very touching.

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glhaynes
"Then I remembered that you actually need light to see, and it probably
couldn’t see much at night."

:) This story made me smile. Good for the author!

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shajith
That's quite a touching account. On a whim, I enabled VoiceOver on my iPhone
(I'm sighted), and I must say I'm quite blown away.

I recommend you try it if you aren't aware of this feature. It's easily
enabled in the system Settings app (look for Accessibility). Just remember
that when VoiceOver is active icons/buttons will require double taps instead
of single taps, and you need to use triple-touch to scroll in menus or between
home screens.

I'm sure that as a sighted person with no context I'm completely missing any
nuance in the way this feature is implemented, but even handicapped so, it is
quite impressive.

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drgath
Video, demonstrating how blind iPhone users interact with the device.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_TFHqIHBqM>

~~~
Emore
Anyone else seeing the sad irony of YouTube comments pointing out out-of-focus
video for a clip of a blind man's demo?

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bgruber
also, google employs one of the most innovative eyes-free developers on the
planet, t.v. raman, to do work on android. check out the results of his work
(and of his collaborator charles chen) at <http://code.google.com/p/eyes-
free/>, demos at <http://www.youtube.com/user/EyesFreeAndroid>.

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chopsueyar
Cool mention at the end of the article about "augmented reality", by using an
app that identifies color via the phone's built-in camera.

Reminds me of the compass belt... [http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-
osnabrueck.de/en/technology_01.h...](http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-
osnabrueck.de/en/technology_01.html)

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joeyh
Anyone have experience with android's accessability UI?

A blind friend showed it to me, and it seemed fairly impressive but with the
major failing that the web browser was not accessible.

Of course, the benefit of using android would be getting a phone with a
physical keyboard, and a d-pad.

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endtime
>Amazingly, it even renders stock charts, something the blind have never had
access to. Sold.

Can someone explain this to me? How can a chart be "rendered" for a blind
person?

~~~
shajith
You move your finger over the stock chart, and it reads out the X and Y values
to you. Eg: "May 28 10, 256.17" (i.e, on May 28 2010, the stock was trading at
$256.17). You can scan the chart with your finger to get the whole thing
described.

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quux
Voiceover is really impressive. I'm sighted, but I keep the shortcut to turn
it on (triple click home button) enabled so I can use it quickly when I want
to.

I use it to read and type short text messages when I'm driving without taking
my eyes off the road. Other times I use the screen reader to read websites to
me while driving.

So to the other developers out there, remember, accessibility helps the
sighted users as well as the blind.

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extension
Typing this on my iPad with my eyes closed

~~~
extension
Wow that was brutal. Took me maybe 20 minutes to get from the accessibility
screen to submitting that, all without looking. Still, it's amazing that I
could do it at all.

The touch keyboard has gotta be a deal breaker for blind people though. You
have to poke around and listen for the letter you want, then double tap it.
You can jump to the start and end of a field but I didn't find any way to move
around in the text. I assume they can generally type full speed on a physical
keyboard and I couldn't imagine getting a phone without one if I was blind.

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andrew_k
Google cache for the article, since the site seems to be down
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:z3Hq_TK...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:z3Hq_TKo4QcJ:behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-
first-week-with-the-iphone/+http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-first-
week-with-the-iphone/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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senthilnayagam
amazing article,

slightly out of context, are there any 3rd party accessibility testing and
consulting companies who specialize in web applications?

~~~
bphogan
I occasionally do this as a freelancer if it's a larger project. If it's
something small, I don't mind answering a few questions for free. I'm visually
impaired, as are my father and daughter. I have an interest in making the web
more accessible. In fact I'll be writing an article about this for the next
PragPub magazine. Feel free to contact me if I can help.

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bond
Amazing...

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albertogh
The link is giving me a database error, but printful mirrored the text before
it went down. Check <http://printful.com/VZQA>

Disclaimer: printful is a side project of mine

~~~
Shamiq
Sexy, do you run readability on it first?

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albertogh
Not really. I got the initial idea from readability, but I developed my own
algorithm for text and image extraction using Python and lxml.

