Ask Slashdot: What Tablet and Software For a Partially Sighted Person?

RobHart (70431) writes My friend has had both retinas detach, twice. He is legally blind but partially sighted. He has a number of devices that help him read (either by magnifying the text or as text to speech) — but none are really portable. What do Slashdotters recommend (if anything) in terms of a tablet and software that will make it possible for him to do email and read at least some web sites?

Comments

iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

iPad / iPhone. Their accessibility support is top-notch, and you can walk into an Apple store and ask an employee to walk you through it all.

Re:iOS

[davester666]

The main negative is....ebooks... Publishers want to gouge people for having the text of a book read to them, and would rather screw over blind people than permit Apple to read the text of ebooks for no additional charge. Some publishers have some kind of workaround for blind people, so they don't come across as complete douchebags, but the workarounds also tend to be a hassle.

Re:iOS

[hcs_$reboot]

iPad / iPhone. Their accessibility support is top-notch, and you can walk into an Apple store and ask an employee to walk you through it all.

IPAD / IPHONE . THEIR ACCESSIBILITY IS TOP-NOTCH

--
FTFY

Re:iOS

[tlhIngan]

The main negative is....ebooks... Publishers want to gouge people for having the text of a book read to them, and would rather screw over blind people than permit Apple to read the text of ebooks for no additional charge. Some publishers have some kind of workaround for blind people, so they don't come across as complete douchebags, but the workarounds also tend to be a hassle.

Actually, I haven't heard much brouhaha over using an iPad to read to you - and this was back when the Kindle was being demonized for offering the feature, yet the iPad could do it via accessibility. It isn't the most friendliest of features but you can use VoiceOver with iBooks and have it read aloud any book as part of it.

No, it's not going to be easy since it reads everything else as well, but it comes standard with the iPad.

I guess it's "hard enough" that people don't bother.

Re:iOS

[arth1]

Yep, this. iOS is second to none in terms of accessibility support.

I'm not too sure. Are there, for example, any Braille readers for iOS, like there is for both Windows and Linux? Or haptic mice? How about something as simple as bitmap fonts at large sizes instead of scalable fonts?
How about text-to-speech or speech recognition in other languages than the most common ones?
Or on-screen keyboards that understand more than one language at a time?

I'd say that Apple's accessibility support is superb as long as you belong to the 80% most common group. But their support of the remaining 20% is abysmal compared to the competition. The one-shoe-fits-all principle doesn't work well. With accessibility, it's better to add something that sucks but can be used than to nix it because it's not good enough. And that's unfortunately what Apple does.

Re:iOS

[anyaristow]

The main negative is....ebooks... Publishers want to gouge people for having the text of a book read to them, and would rather screw over blind people than permit Apple to read the text of ebooks for no additional charge. Some publishers have some kind of workaround for blind people, so they don't come across as complete douchebags, but the workarounds also tend to be a hassle.

This. Very much, this.

Re:iOS

[anyaristow]

I have a partially-sighted (legally blind) friend who hates touch displays with a firey passion. What she wants most in life is an MP3 player / book reader with a large capacity and tactile controls, which has a clear voice for reading, and which can be loaded from an interface that is not accessibility-hostile (like iTunes) and which will allow her to use content she already has or can get from the public domain.

iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

Love Apple or hate Apple, they do accessibility well.

Re:iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think they're fanboys? Why might it not be simply that iOS's accessibility support is really good?

Re:iPad

[gl4ss]

you mean everything doesn't break into pieces if you double or triple the font size on osx and ios now? I would imagine 99% of applications breaking beyond belief (due to the pixel oriented designing of apps for osx/ios for the past decade).

what the friend might like.. would be to get something like a 10" android tablet and somehow adjust the firmware to think that the screen is just 3 inches wide(end result would be that applications that are resolution+density aware would just make everything bigger without breaking.

I assume that's what he is looking for anyways, he doesn't just want audio I would think, but would like a portable magnifying glass..

iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's included support in iOS devices is outstanding, and has been for years. Advocacy organizations have given them awards over this, which AFAIK has happened to no other mass marked vendor. Google David Woodbrige and Vision Australia - they have extensive write ups on technology use for vision impaired users, including OS X and iOS.

Large TV, hight contrast

[sinij]

Connect laptop or desktop to a large TV and put a high-contrast scheme.

Re:Large TV, hight contrast

[sinij]

Imagine having to use 2 inch tablet to send out emails. That how using a regular-sized tablet would feel like to a legally blind person. I have one in the extended family, and while they could see the tablet, reading from it is out of the question.

It is one thing to be supportive, it is another thing to set them up for failure. There are limitations imposed by their condition, and it is unwise to ignore these.

Re:Large TV, hight contrast

[kylemonger]

Don't put all legally blind people into the same box. I find pretty much any tablet a delight to use. I'm extremely near-sighted (20/200 in the *good* eye) but I can put the tablet as close to my face as I need. Pinch/spread zooming works for the sites with hideously small fonts, provided the stupid site doesn't disable it (I'm talking about you, nytimes.com). Three finger double tap and drag works for those. iOS on an iPad has worked very well for me, but I've used other normal sized tablets (9-10 inch diagonal) without significant difficulty.

Re:Large TV, hight contrast

[tom.rake]

I did read the Topic it does say Table and Software, It also mentions Partially Sighted Persons. Partially Sighted include a wide range of conditions including many of the anal retentive comment on this thread who fail to see a bigger picture from their parents basement.

My wife lost significant vision in the past year and a half, the only solution that has worked for her is a large monitor and use an iPad with a very large font, she can not makeout the icons because she can't see the details. iPhones and other smart phones are useless for her.It is really likely that there may be no portable solution other than perhaps some kind of projection system. Disabilities affect people in very different ways and expecting portability may be too much for some conditions.

Who is the idiot who called this thread offtopic?

I can vouch for the iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife had both retinas detach also (due to uveitis), lost vision completely in one eye due to scarring in the re-attachment surgery, had to have DSEK on her only good eye, and she's currently legally blind too (20/200). She's been using an iPad as her "main" computer since the 1st gen iPad (currently on a 3rd gen). The fact that she can pinch-zoom almost every website/email up to whatever zoom level is necessary has been a life-saver for her. For websites that have 'mobile' versions that disable pinch and zoom, the new Mobile Safari now has an option to "Request Desktop Site", which mostly works to request a zoomable, desktop version of the website. Dictation has also worked well for her when she had a flare and her vision was almost nil. On top of that, there's some other accessibility features like VoiceOver and 'hardware' zoom through a triple-tap that she has not needed to use, but they're there if push comes to shove.

Re: I can vouch for the iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

Any android have the same feature and Google voice recognition seem better than Siri IMHO.

Samsung

[denisbergeron]

I have Note 3 and Note Pro 12.2 both have voice read mode and high contrast mode. D ont know if is standard on any other android.

no updates changing things that have memorized

[raymorris]

The one thing that most annoys my client with low vision is updates that cause things to be in different places or look different. Like a touch typist, he relies on memory much more than people with normal sight do. He CAN put his nose to the screen and find the icon for ____, but it's much easier if it's in the same place it has always been.

In short, iOS

[ernest.cunningham]

As others have said, iOS has very good accessibility support. I am developing a system for visually impaired (VI) people to give them contextual awareness in their community. As part of this development process we engaged the VI community to have them test and provide design and testing feedback. Their first piece of advice was that iOS is the preferred platform due to voice over and other accessibility options. So, our system's mobile support is starting with iOS.

Re:In short, iOS

[dougoftheabaci4296]

Seconded. I have a friend who works for the BBC doing accessibility. He and I have had many discussions about accessibility and while I hate to speak for him the general impression I've always had is that iOS has exceptional accessibility support out of the box, especially compared to the competition. Which, of course, doesn't surprise me much given how good OS X is out of the box as well.

Re:Browser configurations / RSS / technologies

[Immerman]

>I'm a frontend web developer and absolutely *not* an expert on accessibility in any way.

And this right here is what is wrong with so very, very much of the web. Well, that and a generally poor understanding of normal usability/interface design as well. But hey, at least we finally (mostly) got rid of the %$#@! blink tag!

ipad seems to be the thing

[steak]

the va gives the blindish vets ipads.

Kindle or Nook

[techno-vampire]

I have a friend who's been legally blind all of her life. She has a Kindle and finds it very easy to use and read because she knows how to adjust the text size to what she needs. I have a high-end Nook that I'm very fond of. I've let my friend experiment with it and she told me that if she didn't have a Kindle, she could get along just fine with my Nook. Depending on just what you need, either one may be the right answer for you.

Many thanks for the feedback

[RobHart]

Many thanks for all the feedback. I will talk to the Blind Association here in Australia and then take my friend to try out a few tablets. For software reasons, I am hoping that Android will do enough on a large tablet (there's an app that doesn't run on IOS that I know he would like to have access to), but we'll go and look at iPads as well!

If there are any more comments, please do post them - I'll check back several times over the next few days.

Again, my thanks!

Robert Hart

Re:Many thanks for the feedback

[quetwo]

Give it a try, but research shows that the iOS devices are much better at accessibility.

On my campus we have "The Research Center for Persons with Disabilities," and they overwhelmingly advocate for iOS devices (iPad / iPhone). The difference is that iOS has the accessibility built into the OS, where under Android, it's up to the apps to support it. Things like Voice-Over, temporary speech, high-contrast mode, zoom, etc. are all OS level functions and don't rely on a single app to provide the feedback. On Android there are accessibility "hooks" that are pretty much only used by Google -- and if you don't have an ASOP device the addons that the hardware partners put in rarely make use of them (meaning some dialog boxes will do speech, some wont. Some critical apps will, some won't).

For e-books there are apps like Voice Dream (again, iOS), that come highly recommended. Essentially, it turns the book reading experience into something like iTunes -- you can scrub through the file, read it back faster,slower etc. It also highlights the words it is trying to pronounce so that if you run across a technical word that isn't commonly annunciated properly, you can zoom in and read it for yourself.

Re: Many thanks for the feedback

[RobHart]

The advice given was nearly unanimous: an iOS device. So you'll try an Android since there's "an app you need that only runs on Android." So why did you ask us then? At least include all relevant information next time.

Simple reason for not including that info - I wanted to hear opinions on all possibilities, not just limited to Android. Good functionality will trump one particular App. My friend doesn't have access to that App now so continuing not to have it is not the real issue - useable, portable email and web access is much more important.

Re:Many thanks for the feedback

[eionmac]

See also NVDA screen reader from Austraila folks for use on PCs /Laptops. It can be set to read one line at a time, but it is not a voice controled system
www.nvaccess.org

Size and resolution

[pr100]

A lot of people have mention brands - like ipad, but there's surely more to it than that - not all ipads are the same.

A large high resolution display is better able to clearly display a reasonable amount of text at a higher zooms.

Screen reader

[rpstrong]

Slightly off-topic, but I am working with a totally blind lady who uses a desktop. There are various screen reader programs out there, with the leaders being quite pricey. But Microsoft teamed up with the current owners of Window Eyes last year to allow a free installation of Window Eyes (full version) if you have a qualifying copy of Office installed. Qualifying copies include practically any version of 2010 or newer - see windoweyesforoffice.com for full details.

What is that app?

[SuperKendall]

there's an app that doesn't run on IOS that I know he would like to have access to

So the real question is, what is that app and are you SURE there's nothing like it on IOS?

There are a LOT of tablet specific apps, and many of them integrate well with iOS accessibility.