BID Services is a charity which works to remove barriers and empower those who are D/deaf, hard of hearing, sight impaired, deafblind or have other disabilities to live full lives. Our team in Leeds has setup a mobile Karten Centre which can not only offer access to technology and support at our city centre office in Leeds but can also be taken to our community hubs across the Leeds area where we deliver services closer to our clients. The mobile Karten Centre is already helping us support people to overcome the digital divide on both mainstream technology and bespoke solutions for our clients.
We spend a lot of time introducing people to the multiplicity of technologies that can play a part in supporting the independence of our service users, but there is the constant threat of a small change breaking the solution that has been relied on for years. A Screenreader is an incredibly powerful tool, it can make the difference between independently accessing the digital world or missing out on that world as it becomes ever more prevalent. Screenreaders are constantly updated, whether built into the operating system such as Apple’s VoiceOver or Microsoft’s Narrator or created by a third party like Freedom Scientific’s JAWS for Windows, but sometimes a fundamental change happens to the software we all use. Although it can be irritating in the extreme to non-disabled people it can completely break a tried and trusted method used by the disabled user.
Recently, Google Mail withdrew their basic HTML view from their Gmail website, and this has caused no end of problems for some Screenreader users, although quite correctly Google insisted that the standard webpage was accessible it required at least one Screenreader to be used very differently than most users would be used to. For those who haven’t come across one, a Screenreader provides synthesised speech output as a user interacts with the webpage. As it can be used by people without any useful sight it can be controlled completely by the keyboard when using a laptop, or by a different set of gestures when using a mobile device. Its effectiveness when navigating a webpage is limited however by how accessible the page is, how well web standards have been applied by the designers and of course the amount of content filling the page. A Screenreader is also such a powerful tool that the learning curve to become proficient in all situations is steep and of course a client will usually learn how to drive the software to the extent they need to complete their everyday tasks. Although skills gained in one area should translate to a different application, we become comfortable in the everyday. This is true of reading a webpage. There are a multitude of keyboard shortcuts so that a user can jump between elements and not find themselves limited to reading the page from top to bottom.
So, when the change was made to Gmail, one of our clients who uses JAWS suddenly found themselves outside their comfort zone and unable to deal with their email when accessing the webpage. They found themselves lost on the page as previous shortcuts took their focus to strange new places. In the past they had relied on a muscle memory that involved pressing keys in a remembered order to get to the email list or the reply button and even though the elements were still available they were lost to the mental picture that had previously provided a framework to the page. Our client grew more frustrated with the inability to progress and was unable to let go of the previous way of working to clear the way to engage with the new. After many weekly sessions with no success, it was time to start looking at alternatives. JAWS is considered by many to be the most well-developed and widely used Screenreader for the Windows platform and it follows a principle of supporting access to the applications and webpages in the most comprehensive way. But as the Gmail page shows sometimes that comprehensive access comes with an almost overwhelming amount of information. Within the Visually Impaired technology world applications on mobile devices tend to be streamlined by design, more suited to smaller screens and this can simplify the user experience. After looking at a number of mobile solutions the client tried out a Synapptic device which is a bespoke mobile phone sitting on the Android platform but using software to give a straightforward user experience suitable for those who are struggling with mainstream accessible technologies. Even though the client was learning a new system, this was more intuitive than amending their previous understanding and they soon were managing their email independently.
Being able to work through a change in circumstances, especially when it is forced on a client through the constant updating inherent in the world of technology is such a vital part of what we can provide through our Karten Centre rather than sending people away with solutions that cannot grow with the client experience.
We would like to say a huge thank you to The Ian Karten Charitable Trust for your ongoing support and helping us develop our mobile Karten Centre in Leeds so that we can provide the best possible support to our clients.
To find out more about our services in Leeds and our Karten Centre, find us at: Leeds – BID Services
Article meta data
Clicking on any of the links in this section will take you to other articles that have been tagged in the same category.
- This article was written by the BID Services Leeds Karten Centre
- Featured in the Karten Summer 2024 Newsletter
- This article is listed in the following subject areas: Centre News