Effective Technology

Effective Technology

The Braille Monitor

March,

2004

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Effective

Technology

by

Jim Halliday

From the Editor: Jim

Halliday has been a fixture for a long time in the access-technology field.

For many years he was president of HumanWare, an access-technology provider.

His title is now President Emeritus of HumanWare, and he is dedicated to doing

what he can to improve technology for blind users. Here is an article that lays

out his thoughts about what constitutes effective technology for blind people:

Jim

Halliday

I was sitting in Dr. Maurer's

office at NFB headquarters in Baltimore one morning when the idea for this article

was born. He told me that he was ready to start downloading Braille books from

Bookshare.org onto his BrailleNote. His enthusiasm about having instant access

to thousands of Braille books was the manifestation of a dream I've had since

1979. Ever since I saw the first electronic Braille book stored on a cassette

tape being read on a VersaBraille, I've imagined a time when Braille would be

every bit as available to blind people as print is to sighted people, a time

when Braille users would own large libraries of books. Now a Braille user can

store hundreds of Braille books on standard, compact flash memory cards that

easily pop in and out of a BrailleNote. Because of technology our world has

changed in a flash.

Technology

is an amazing thing. When I was born, telephones were all black and had rotary

dials and umbilical cords that were hardwired into wall boxes. Music came in

the form of one tune on each side of an amazing new vinyl invention called 45s.

Elevators had people rather than buttons operating them. There were rumors of

televisions and vinyl records called LPs that could hold six songs per side

and reel-to-reel tapes onto which you could record your voice or even your own

music. In the world of blindness there was an exciting new Braille writer called

a Perkins. Sighted people had a similar mechanical device called a typewriter.

More than ever before in history, we are confronted today with rapid change.

Some of it we embrace, some of it we reject, and some of it is forced upon us

regardless of our desires (for example, Microsoft's switch from MS-DOS to Windows).

I

visited my ninety-year-old Aunt Gertrude last week and noticed that, although

she has a portable phone in the kitchen, in her bedroom she still uses the same

old rotary phone that my grandmother was using in the late 1940's. Aside from

some restored automobiles, my Aunt Gertrude's rotary phone, and the Perkins

Brailler, it is difficult to find any technology from circa 1950 in daily use.

When

I ask myself why people continue to use old technology, I come up with six key

reasons: 1) No new technology has been developed to replace it; 2) The old technology

still works; 3) People don't know about the new technology; 4) People don't

perceive any value in the new technology as it applies to their own lives; 5)

People can't afford the new technology; and 6) The new technology is intimidating

and too complicated, and people don't have the time or energy to learn how to

use it.

Let's talk about these

six points.

1. No New Technology?

In the cases of my aunt's

phone and the Perkins Brailler, we can't say that new phones or new Braillewriters

don't exist. Every decade telephones have changed and added more power and more

features. In fact today's phones are not just telephones, they are wireless

communicators that also send and retrieve messages, tell the time and date,

browse the Internet, check email, do calculations, and even send photos. Some

phones are also PDAs (personal data assistants).

Modern Braillewriters, like

the Mountbatten, not only write Braille, but do it with minimal physical effort,

enabling preschoolers to explore Braille years earlier than old technology allowed.

The new Braille writers are quieter when adjusted for different grades of paper.

They talk so that Braille learners can auditorily verify the accuracy of each

key press, promoting practice and self-learning. They also work with standard

keyboards and have built-in Braille translators that enable both Braille and

non-Braille users to generate hardcopy Braille. They work with printers to generate

print from a Braille file, and they can even work as a Braille embosser when

connected to a computer. No, we can't say that there is no new technology.

2. Why Keep Old Technology?

If the user has no need

for all of the many advantages new technology offers and wants to perform only

the basic functions for which it was originally designed, then the old technology

remains valid. I can totally accept the fact that a user of old technology should

have the choice to continue using that technology as long as he or she wants.

However, we have now entered the twenty-first century, and I do not accept the

notion that blind children should be expected to wait until they have enough

finger strength to use fifty-year-old technology when sighted children are introduced

to current technology at the preschool level. The world that our children will

face in the next decade requires access to current technology if they are to

be competitive. Old technology, even when it's free, won't make our children

competitive in this rapidly changing world.

3. Unaware of What's New?

Companies in mainstream

markets are known to spend millions of dollars on one thirty-second TV spot

just to reinforce what customers already know. The combined annual marketing

expenditure of all the companies in our industry would be a tiny fraction of

the cost of that one thirty-second spot. Companies in our industry don't have

much money for marketing, so they rely on customers to tell their friends, agencies

to make demonstration equipment available, teachers to make the latest equipment

available to their students, and trainers to educate themselves on the latest

technologies so that they can make recommendations to prospective buyers.

The NFB's International

Braille and Technology Center is the only place in the world that I know of

where every piece of blindness technology is available for potential users to

explore and test. Although more people should come to Baltimore to experience

this fabulous center, the truth is that most technology buyers make buying decisions

based on input from experts. Many of these experts are indeed very knowledgeable

about certain technology, but few have in-depth experience with the breadth

of technology available at the NFB's National Center.

How do these experts determine

what technology is best for the people they serve? Some experts depend on their

own experience. What works for them should be okay for everyone else. If they

don't use a particular product, the people they serve won't hear about it or

they'll get a biased perspective. Some experts depend on product vendors or

distributors, but if these folks don't sell a particular product or are poorly

trained on demonstrating a new product, the expert who is trying to learn may

be left with a false impression that is then conveyed to his or her clients.

Some experts talk to other

experts. These discussions are excellent for expanding the in-depth knowledge

of a given product, but unless one of the participants is intimately familiar

with the latest technology, such discussions can entrench the participants still

deeper in their existing comfort zones. Experts vary from those enamored with

any new technology to those entrenched in the old. So how do end users decide

whether new technology is appropriate for them?

4. How Does This New Technology

Help Me?

One of the great challenges

of choosing the right technology is understanding what it can actually do for

us. I once bought a tool box on sale with a hundred different tools. What a

deal, I thought. In retrospect, 80 percent of the tools have never been touched

because I didn't need them. What's more, the tools that I did use were of such

poor quality that I ended up replacing them with a few quality tools. What a

rip-off. With technology we often think that more is better when more may actually

mean only more complexity. Complexity is not necessarily bad, but the more complex

the challenge, the greater the need for training. In the end, as with my tool

box, we usually limit our use of the technology to a few critical applications.

How do we decide which applications

are important to us if we have never used them? We live in a visually-oriented

world, so it is important to determine how we can successfully compete in that

world. The natural tendency is to say, "If sighted people use a particular

technology, then we need to use that technology too." Windows is a good

example. But is using Windows really our goal? Isn't our real goal to be able

to work in an environment that is as friendly to blind users as Windows is to

sighted users so that we all can be equally productive without sacrificing the

quality or compatibility of our output? Equal productivity without jumping through

extra hoops is our real goal. Does new technology do that for us?

We must assess new technology's

ability to give us equal productivity. We must ask ourselves, "What are

successful sighted people able to do with technology, and does blindness technology

allow blind people to do those things just as efficiently and effectively?"

What are the critical elements

of technology designed for personal productivity?

a) Is it truly portable?

Laptops are quasi-portable due to their size and limited battery life.

b) Is the environment intuitive

and friendly to a blind user? Windows was designed with a graphical user interface

to make it easy for sighted users. A sighted person uses this friendly interface

to access information. A blind user uses a screen reader to access the sighted

person's user interface in order to access information. To be sure, many blind

people are quite capable and effective PC users, despite the contortions they

undergo when competing in a predominately sighted workplace. It is comforting

to know that this is the case when such access is required.

c) Are the applications

appropriate, and are they consistent with that friendly environment? Like my

tool box, thirty difficult-to-use applications may not be nearly as useful as

seven or eight key applications that are easy to use.

d) Is the output from the

technology compatible with mainstream technology? For example, if a sighted

person sends you an email with an MS Word attachment, can you read it? Or can

you write a report in contracted Braille and automatically back-translate the

file into an MS Word file?

e) What are the most critical

applications that make you productive and competitive? Individual needs vary,

but most technology users require a consistently friendly environment that gives

them an efficient way to:

• Write, edit,

and spellcheck;

• Send and receive

emails with attachments;

• Browse the

Internet;

• Download,

store, and read Braille books, research materials, newspapers, etc.;

• Organize and

schedule their time and activities;

• Store and retrieve

names and contact information;

• Easily exchange

data with sighted technology users either through direct connection, email,

or transfer media; and

• Plan, follow,

and monitor travel routes to and from walking or transportation destinations,

including access to updates while traveling regarding street crossings and other

points of interest (shops, schools, restaurants, etc.) along the way.

Our own unique technology

requirements may or may not include applications beyond those mentioned above.

In most cases additional applications require the power of a full-blown computer,

which means the added need for screen access. Since portable personal productivity

technology is not powerful enough to run full-blown computer applications, but

instead uses stripped down versions, going to a real computer makes sense. If

you are going to add the complexity of a screen reader, you may as well use

standard computer applications.

5. Does New Technology

Cost too Much?

We often get hung up on

cost versus value. What is it worth to be more productive, effective, and successful

all day, every day? What is it worth to own a library filled with electronic

Braille books that you can always carry with you to read on a bus or a train

or while sitting under a tree? Think about how much money we spend on little

things every day. For example, a Starbuck's venti mocha costs $3.65. Let's say

you drink one every day for three years. That would cost you $3,996.75. A BrailleNote

18 with the NFB member discount costs $3,890.25. Aside from the possibility

of increasing your hyperactivity, the mocha is not likely to increase your productivity

and effectiveness in the competitive world. The BrailleNote, on the other hand,

happens to fill all of the critical requirements noted in the previous section

of this article.

You may say, "I can

buy a laptop computer that is far more powerful than a BrailleNote for $1,000."

That may be true, but does the laptop computer meet any of the criteria noted

above? The reason that millions of PDAs are sold every year is because they

serve a different purpose from a laptop computer. A PDA's ability to store and

retrieve bits of information instantly is critical to one's productivity when

on the go. Booting up a laptop simply is not an option for such applications.

Besides, if you add a screen reader for $795, Office XP for $395, and the cheapest

Braille display on the market for around $1,995, you would be paying $4,185

for a heavy, complicated, nonintegrated collection of hardware with about 10

percent the battery life of an appropriate PDA with Braille display.

6. Is New Technology Too

Complicated and Difficult to Use?

Indeed new technology can

be complicated until one learns to use it. Complicated technology generally

costs about the same amount as the training required to learn to use it effectively.

In other words, when we decide on a particular piece of technology, we need

to take into account the hidden costs associated with training or the additional

time it will take to train ourselves (assuming this is possible), or the possibility

that we will learn only the basic functions and leave it at that. If we haven't

budgeted for training or can't find a trainer we can afford, then we must ask

ourselves whether purchasing complicated technology is the right decision for

us. Here again, powerful technology does not necessarily mean the same as complicated

technology. In fact technology with an intuitive environment may be even more

powerful because the user can put all of it to good use.

When evaluating technology,

it is important to look at the power as it relates to your needs, but it is

also critical to examine the environment, the applications, context-sensitive

help, and the user's manual. Is the environment intuitive? Do the applications

all feel the same, and can you exchange information among the various applications?

Can you be anywhere within any application and get help? Is the manual instantly

available on your device? Is competent technical support available to you from

your supplier if all else fails? If the technology you are considering has "yes"

answers to all of these questions, then your need for training goes down in

direct proportion to each "yes," as do the related costs. Complexity

and hidden costs are part of the same package, just as intuitive environment

and personal productivity are related. Of course there are times when complexity

cannot be avoided, but then and only then should one have to live in such an

environment.

Equal

Environment in the Twenty-First Century

As people begin to understand

the true purpose of a PDA, they start to realize that the traditional idea of

access is not valid when personal productivity is being measured. Equal access

generally means that a person who is blind has to adapt through the use of access

technology to a sighted environment. Thank goodness such products exist when

such access is absolutely necessary. However, the fact remains that sighted

computer users live in a visually intuitive environment, an environment designed

to help make sighted people productive. Access technology users, however, live

in a complex environment that provides access to a visual computer environment,

an environment that is fundamentally unfriendly to a blind user. To create a

truly equal situation, both blind and sighted people must live in equally friendly,

intuitive, and productive environments. In other words, equal environment is

the path to personal productivity in a competitive world.

Historically

the problem with creating an environment specifically for a blind person meant

that that person was restricted to varying degrees when interacting with the

sighted world. Understandably that was unacceptable, and thankfully access technology

was developed to accommodate the problem. However, in the twenty-first century,

we have entered the E-age. Email, e-commerce, eBooks, and other uses of the

Internet mean that people are increasingly exchanging data electronically, so

a deaf-blind BrailleNote user can communicate with a sighted computer user,

and neither person knows or needs to know whether one party or the other has

a disability. Furthermore, when a device like the BrailleNote is capable of

automatically converting Microsoft Word files into contracted Braille files

and vice versa, the traditional concerns of exchanging data with a blind person

disappear. Synchronizing with Outlook is just frosting on the cake.

We

are often asked, "Why do blind people so enthusiastically embrace products

like BrailleNotes and VoiceNotes?" There are three simple reasons:

1)An

intuitive, easy-to-use environment to work in means that a user can be immediately

productive.

2)A

set of meaningful and appropriate applications designed to work in that friendly

environment means that a user has all of the primary tools needed to compete

effectively in a sighted world.

3)The

ability simply to exchange data with a computer or to save files in standard

Microsoft Windows formats means that a user can work in contracted Braille yet

produce documents that are readily usable by a sighted person and vice versa.

If

a portable device does not meet these three fundamental criteria, it could actually

impair personal productivity. Although the BrailleNote and VoiceNote do not

eliminate the need for access technology in mainstream computer environments,

they do address all of the primary requirements of a personal productivity tool.

Whether we are sighted or blind, we are all measured on our personal productivity.

Having powerful yet intuitive tools that unleash our innate ability to compete

successfully is a critical step toward personal productivity. BrailleNote and

VoiceNote have been enthusiastically embraced by thousands of blind people because

the traditional obstacles of access do not exist in an intuitive environment,

where users are free to compete equally with sighted people without compromising

the compatibility of their output.

Effective technology must

ultimately empower the individual user of that technology. For some, full-blown

computers are essential. For others, a Perkins Brailler or a rotary telephone

will suffice. For most of us a personal productivity tool that makes us productive

wherever we go while remaining compatible with mainstream communication needs

is critical if we expect to compete effectively in this world and also for our

quality of life. Sometimes relaxing with a good book is just as important as

doing emails or writing reports.

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