Intro, voice over music:
Welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast presented by the National Federation of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans. Live the life you want.
Anil Lewis: Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This is Anil Lewis, Executive Director of Blindness Initiatives for the National Federation of the Blind. Yes, I know it's not Global Accessibility Awareness Day, but we at the National Federation of the Blind Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access believe that global accessibility awareness should not just be contained in one day. And we want to take the opportunity to tell you about some of the wonderful work that we've been doing over the past year in conjunction with the state of Maryland, the Maryland Department on Disability through a Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant. I'm here with the members of the staff of our Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access. Karl, Kennedy, how are you guys doing?
Kennedy Zimnik: I'm good. This is Kennedy Zimnik. I am an access tech specialist here on the Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility.
Karl Belanger: Hi, I'm Karl Belanger. I'm also on the CENA staff, nonvisual accessibility analyst. Happy to be here today to discuss the work we've done over the past year.
Anil Lewis: Just to let our listeners know, the National Federation of the Blind Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access is where we house the expertise not only of our staff, but of our membership around the lived experience of blind people so that we can make sure that we can access technologies. Not just websites and applications, but everything from home appliances to medical devices, to the devices that everyone else uses to live, work, and play every day. We're able to leverage that good work that we do with the wonderful public-private relationship where we can help the state of Maryland be forward-thinking around accessibility. They can leverage the expertise of the lived experience of all of our members and our talented staff at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute. This is really truly a win-win. So what we plan on doing today is just going over some of the work that we do under the Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant from the state of Maryland, which covers accessibility in several key areas.
So one is education. We had some really good dynamic programming around accessible education, the area of employment that's an evolving area that we're collaborating with the state of Maryland. Of course, our ever-popular virtual boutiques and trainings that we offer throughout the year, the Smart Cities work we do, and our Accessibility Fellows program, which really helps educate professors in the university system to include accessibility in their curriculum. And we'll close with some other projects that we've done under our Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access that help support the work that we're doing under the Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant. So we'll start in the area of education. So, Karl, you want to tell us a little bit about what we've done in education?
Karl Belanger: Certainly, one of the biggest events we did in education this past year was with the university system of Maryland for the Maryland open-source textbooks and accessibility work. We hosted a conference last fall here at the NFB headquarters, and we had about sixty participants from various groups in the university system of Maryland for a day of learning, discussing procurement, document accessibility, classroom work, and many other topics.
Anil Lewis: I think one of the most impressive things about that particular event to me was that our collaboration with the current center, our Maryland open-source textbook group to coordinate that really brought in not just accessibility experts from the universities, they brought in teams from each university. So they had people from the disability student services office, they had individuals who were responsible for developing curriculum, people who were responsible for supporting the infrastructure, the digital infrastructure of the university. And I think that's symbolic of what enculturation of accessibility means or what needs to happen on that university level if we're really going to have true attention toward accessibility.
Kennedy Zimnik: I think you hit the nail on the head. It was really cool seeing not just accessibility leaders or professors that might have to deal with publications or digital materials. But like you said, we had admin teams, we had people that weren't professors but still worked in the education space. And I think that conference was really cool and important because it connected people in the university that may not have known each other or may not have known each other's jobs. So, I think it really opened the lines of communication at the very least between different parts of each organization or school.
Anil Lewis: I think we did it right.
Karl Belanger: I think we did too.
Kennedy Zimnik: Agreed.
Anil Lewis: Yeah. One of many things we did in education. We also did some work around accessible classrooms.
Karl Belanger: Certainly. We did a boutique around many education topics, especially learning management systems. Many schools and teachers just select products and tools for teaching whatever subject they may want to teach, and some teachers don't always think about accessibility. So, we did a boutique on showing how students can work with teachers to make sure materials that are being used in the classroom are accessible, how teachers can work to procure technologies that are accessible and work with the students to make sure technologies or materials they want to use for future classes are accessible. And then we also talked a little bit about how school districts can work to procure accessible technology and how parents and teachers can work with their administrators, school boards, et cetera, to advocate for and make sure that new technologies that are purchased are accessible and help every student get the education they need.
Anil Lewis: Overall, we've got to stop the bleeding. So procurement is so key. If we can get the school systems to stop purchasing inaccessible technology, we're already ahead of the game. So, I think teaching the individuals that are responsible for procuring the technology to focus on accessibility is key. But I think the most important piece, especially as you were just describing, is the National Federation of the Blind works to make sure we empower blind people. And I think that one of the strengths or skills that our students need to learn very early on is how to advocate for themselves or how to know what needs to happen in order for that environment to be accessible, how to use the tools to make them accessible, and how to advocate to the systems in place to make sure that they're able to get access to those tools.
Kennedy Zimnik: Agreed. And I also think it gave a unique perspective to educators or administrators that might not know what a screen reader is, and we kind of showed them, well, this is how a user of screen reader technology would use, for example, Blackboard or Canvas or Google Classroom. So I think it gave them a unique perspective as well.
Anil Lewis: Absolutely. I don't think there are any systems out there that are intentionally trying to deny access to that post-secondary education environment. There's just a degree of ignorance that comes into play. And if we can educate them and we can show them that it's possible and how it's best done, I think then we again, get more partners in this progressive work that we're doing toward creating accessible environments.
Kennedy Zimnik: And I think it got rid of some of the scariness or misconceptions that people might have about access technology.
Anil Lewis: Through the Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant, we'd be able to work with the Maryland Department of Disability on creating more employment opportunities. This is an area of course that's really evolving, so we don't have a whole lot of meat toward this, but I think that in the coming year, our collaboration and partnership in this space is really going to be exponential. We have started working on some employment training. We believe that educating individuals who are responsible for assisting any individual to navigate through the public systems that are available through our Department of Labor one-stop shops, and even more specifically for some people with disabilities, the Department of Rehabilitation Services. That collaboration is key so that we can recognize that we're all partners in this space, not just the DOL staff and the Department of Rehabilitation Services staff and not just the NFB and its staff. Also, the consumer needs to have skin in the game. And I think that that's where we offer a really big powerful impact in creating viable solutions to employment.
I also am hoping that we, in the current months, will be able to work with some key employers. So, if there's some key Maryland employers out there who are looking to hire blind people, blind or low-vision employees, please reach out to us because we're trying to create case studies. So if you really don't think that it's possible or you're having some problems actively employing blind or low-vision staff, then come to us because we'd like to work with you and document that along the way so that we can use that experience as a case study to hopefully encourage and educate others on how to do it successfully as well. So, look forward to more work in the employment space as we move forward. Now, of course, some of the things we've done peripherally have impacted employment. We had a myth-busting employment boutique. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Kennedy?
Kennedy Zimnik: Sure. Yes. We have monthly boutiques that we offer for free to people, virtual trainings that they can sign up for at nfb.org/cena. And one of these monthly boutiques or trainings was a myth-busting employment panel. So, the main point of this was to get rid of misconceptions that employers might have about blind or low-vision individuals. So, we had panelists from representatives of large retail companies and experts within the NFB. We addressed some fears and concerns in hiring blind candidates and answered questions from the audience that have to do with seeking employment or finding employment. And this was a great turnout. We had a good amount of people come to this, and I think we dispelled some myths and made some people a little bit more comfortable in the either hiring process or applying for a job process. So, I think this was one of our best boutiques that we had this past year.
Anil Lewis: And I think having some of our partners that we've been able to successfully work with to create these employment opportunities really is a good model that we want to continue to build on. And again, having blind individuals who are really demonstrating that they have capacity to not only just get entry level positions, but to be managers and directors in these different spaces is also very instrumental in creating that pivot. And this is only one of the examples of the many boutiques and training seminars that we had throughout the year, because part of what we do under the Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant is to offer these free trainings, many of them on a monthly basis on Zoom, so anyone can really tune in. So Kennedy, tell us a little bit about some of the other boutiques or trainings that we've offered.
Kennedy Zimnik: Sure, yeah. Along with the myth-busting employment panel, which we were really proud of, here's some other interesting boutiques that we spoke on. So Office 365, we had an overview of the Office 365 products. So Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and the accessibility of each of these softwares.
Anil Lewis: I really like what we did with the Office 365, but I really like what Microsoft is doing overall because they're really including the accessibility as part of the normal workflow that anyone uses the device, you have the accessibility checker and all those things. I don't know if we discovered or talked about those in the boutique, but I love highlighting tools that people can use that are native and familiar to everyone that are actually integrating accessibility into the platforms.
Kennedy Zimnik: Yes, agreed. And we did talk about the accessibility checkers for these products, and we chose Office 365 because it's such a popular software package that people use, especially we were just talking about employment. It's integral to a lot of businesses that you learn and know how to use each of these products. So this was a really powerful boutique for a lot of people, I think.
Anil Lewis: Another one was talking about the Linux operating system.
Kennedy Zimnik: So we had an expert, David Hathaway, he's a freelance access tech trainer, come in and kind of an intro level to Linux, what it's used for, why should people care, how do they use it? And it was a really cool boutique. Again, this was based ... How to use Linux to make yourself more employable was a big idea that David kept talking about. So some of the main things he did, he connected to a remote machine, gave a little demo of what the desktop interface looks like, and throughout he was giving real world examples of jobs and different employment you can get with Linux jobs.
Anil Lewis: Is Linux truly accessible?
Karl Belanger: So the way he was doing it was through the Linux command line, through connecting to that from your own computer to a server in the cloud. And that method, yes, is fully accessible. There are Linux desktops out there that was beyond the scope of the boutique. But this was focusing on, as I said, using the Linux command line to do system administration tasks. He talked about spinning up a web server to host your own website or running databases and many other different employment tasks. And he also discussed ways to get certified in Linux that are accessible.
Anil Lewis: Very nice. I know that one of our popular boutiques is the accessible device showcase because it gives us an opportunity to go and demonstrate the accessibility of a variety of different devices. How did we do this year?
Kennedy Zimnik: Great. So I think this is one of our best seminars, and this one is actually one of our quarterly seminars, and this is a fun one that we do right before the holidays, just in case people want to buy any of these accessible devices. So, some of the accessible devices that we talked about were some accessible home appliances, things like smart ovens or thermostats, learning thermostats. We also talked about some games, some board games and some video games as well. Then we also had a short talk from an employee of our Independence Market here at the NFP headquarters that just went over some of the devices that they have in our Independence Market, things like Braille watches and...
Anil Lewis: Yeah, the Independence Market at National Federation of the Blind has a host of different products from games to learning materials and just basic, like you said, watches, cooking things, just basic supplies for blind people.
Kennedy Zimnik: Yep. Canes, of course, I should have mentioned canes.
Anil Lewis: Of course.
Karl Belanger: Always. But no, that showcase really is a fun one. It's the second year we've done that now, and it's just always a lighthearted fun time to just discuss the new developments through the year and give people some information on new things they may be interested in.
Anil Lewis: Nice. And more and more we're looking at mainstream devices that actually have the accessibility built in and not just looking at devices specifically made for blind people. So that's really a good plus. And part of the work that helps that happen is we educate developers on fundamental accessibility. So, one of the things that we do on a reoccurring basis every year is to provide half-day trainings on everything from document accessibility to web accessibility to web testing. You guys want to talk about that?
Kennedy Zimnik: Sure. Yeah. One of our favorite reoccurring boutiques, like you said, is our web testing, either seminar or boutique. And we went into, in-depth, into manual testing, meaning a human doing the testing with a screen reader. And then we also went into automated testing, using software like SortSite or one of the free automated tools like axe [DevTools] to check the accessibility of just one webpage. And we went into the pros and cons of each one and introduced a bunch of new tools for people, web developers or anybody else that might want to do some access tech testing.
Anil Lewis: Nice. So, speaking of pros and cons, I think it's appropriate to make sure we make the point that we always do. Sure, there are a lot of free tools out there, automated tools for accessibility, but there's only one real way to make sure that you catch the real accessibility and user issues. And what is that, gentlemen?
Karl Belanger: That's with manual testing.
Anil Lewis: Absolutely. What is the data? What is it? I forget, that the automated testing only catches what percentage?
Karl Belanger: Automated testing catches about thirty percent of the errors.
Anil Lewis: Sure. So automated testing is a great tool to use, but you also have to back that up with some manual testing.
Kennedy Zimnik: Definitely.
Anil Lewis: In our manual testing boutique, we stress that as well.
Karl Belanger: Yes, one hundred percent.
Anil Lewis: And demonstrate how to do it.
Karl Belanger: Yes.
Anil Lewis: Cool. Cool.
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Anil Lewis: So we're doing a lot with that particular type of interaction with the public. But the other thing we do at our national center, and this falls under our Smart Cities effort within the Nonvisual accessibility Initiatives grant, is we work on evaluating a lot of tools that blind people use to navigate their environment. So, as we move to a world of, what do we call now? Smart cities where traffic lights can talk to cars, can talk to pedestrians through their smartphones, et cetera, it opens up a whole area of opportunity for getting access to environmental information for safe independent travel. Some of the work we've done involves some GPS devices. Karl, you want to talk to us about one of the GPS devices.
Karl Belanger: Sure. So as part of our work with Smart Cities, we review products and just our work in general, we review new technology products that come out from time to time, and one of the products we just concluded reviewing is the Stellar Trek from Humanware. This is a handheld portable GPS device that can provide routing and navigation like a smartphone GPS, but not dependent on a smartphone. It has the ability to virtually browse an area and essentially walk around an area even if you're hundreds of miles away, just through the download and apps, which is fairly unique to that product, and is just a very potentially useful product if you do not, for whatever reason, want to use the GPS app on your smartphone.
Anil Lewis: Speaking of traveling, what are some of the apps or interventions we're looking at for indoor navigation?
Karl Belanger: So we just, we've had for a bit now a service called GoodMaps here at the NFB Jernigan Institute. This is a product that uses primarily your phone's camera to detect where in the building you are, and then it can give you routing from point A to point B. So if I want to go from my office up to Anil's office, I can open up the app, select the location, and the app will tell me to walk around slowly and turn around so that the camera can find where I am. Once it does, it will give me step by step, turn left, take the elevator to the fourth floor, et cetera, directions between where I started and where I want to go.
Anil Lewis: Nice. And we do have an installation at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, and I hope that we continue to kick the wheels on that particular application so that we can continue to make it better. We are also working with another company on indoor nav.
Karl Belanger: Yes. We're working with the company Right Hear, which ...
Anil Lewis: Yeah, I used to say Right Here with the H-E-R-E, but it's Right H-E-A-R, correct?
Karl Belanger: Yes, that is correct.
Anil Lewis: Cool.
Karl Belanger: So this works a little differently than GoodMaps does. So Right Hear works by installing Bluetooth beacons at various points throughout the building. We've set it up on the NFB Jernigan Institute's fourth floor. And the way this works is when you approach, say an intersection or the entrance to a major area, your phone will tell you that, okay, you're now at the lunchroom entrance or the entrance to the sleeping rooms or however that beacon is referred to. And then you can put it into a mode where as you turn around from that point of that beacon, it will give you information as to where nearby landmarks are in relation to the beacon. Whereas GoodMaps is way-finding point to point directions, this is more of an orientation service that lets you get information about where you are and what's around you.
Kennedy Zimnik: And Idan, the creator of Right Hear has described it as a digital sign system as well. So you can think of it as kind of virtual signs that kind of point you in the direction, kind of what's around you.
Anil Lewis: So what else are we're doing in the smart city space?
Karl Belanger: We're also involved in accessible transportation through a company that reached out to us at the beginning of the year. We are now in talks with the Maryland Transit Agency to potentially run a pilot of an interesting device called Spin to Be Seen, which is a device that mounts to the pole of a bus stop to both provide a tactile identifier that yes, this is an actual bus stop. But it also has a disc with a partially reflective surface so that when you hear the bus coming, you can spin the disc, which causes any light, ambient light to reflect off of it and shimmer. So say if it's a cloudy night and the bus stop is partially shielded by a car, even though the bus driver may not be able to see you directly, when you spin this device, they'll be able to see the light from the stop. And with the proper training, they'll know that, okay, if they see that, that means they need to stop because there's someone there even if they may not see the person.
One other area that is particularly interesting is, again, we were approached by a company who wanted us to look at their products. It's an app for detecting walk, don't walk traffic signals with your smartphone. And this is very interesting because typically blind people are trained to, when they approach an intersection, listen to traffic, discern the light pattern and use parallel traffic to know when it's safe to cross. Sometimes there are accessible audible pedestrian signals that will beep when the light walkway activates or whatever, but those are not always available, and sometimes even if they're there, they don't work.
So what this app called OKO, O-K-O does is you take your phone and as you approach an intersection, you hold it in front of you with the camera pointing in front of you, maybe slightly up, and it will attempt to detect a walk, don't-walk traffic signal if there is one. And they're very careful about if there's any ambiguity in the detection, it does not trigger. So even if there may be something there, if they can't confidently say there's something there, they don't activate the alert. But once you do find the traffic signal, you'll get a slow, about maybe once a second beep and vibration indicating that you've locked in on the signal.
When it changes to a walk signal, the beeping and vibration will become much faster. And then if there is a countdown, so visually for some traffic signals, there'll be a countdown that displays the number of seconds remaining until the light changes. While the app does not try to read the number of seconds it can detect when that is being displayed and will change to a different descending series of tones with a different vibration pattern to let you know that the countdown is being displayed. And all the processing happens right on the device so the reaction is pretty much instant. And a group of us went and tested it at a nearby intersection with a representative from the company as well as a couple of staff and some members from the local area. And we were fairly impressed with how quickly it found the light and how quickly it responded when the light changed.
Anil Lewis: We in the National Federation of the Blind really encourage blind people to, as best they can, acquire a skillset to travel independently and know how to use nonvisual access techniques to safely cross the street along with doing other things. But there are some intersections out there that are fairly complicated, especially if you're traveling in that environment for the first time. And just like sighted people, we can benefit from the use of traffic control signals that is multisensory. So it has the audio, but it also has vibrotactile for the deafblind that are traveling independently in their environments and having access to that haptic information, that vibrating information also gives them a tool to use to increase their ability to travel safely and independently.
The developers, I had a chance to meet with them at CSUN this year, are very excited about their product, and they already started networking with other entities toward integrating the use of their street crossing application to other GPS navigating devices, which I think is a win-win because eventually you'll get an application that has so many multimodal means of accessing travel information that regardless of what that individual's unique travel challenge may be, there will be a technical solution to help them travel safely throughout their environment. And I'm glad that we were able to be a part of this discussion. I've seen a lot of our members across the country being actively engaged by these individuals, so I also applaud them for really bringing it to blind people to test. But one of the other kind of grassroots ways that we are really working with the state of Maryland is through our fellows program. Kennedy, you want to describe what our fellows program is?
Kennedy Zimnik: Sure. Yeah. We came up with this program to work with educators that are in higher education in Maryland to help incorporate accessibility into their course. And this isn't just digital courses or computer courses. We've worked with a wide range of different professors to help incorporate accessibility into their course. I think now would be a good time to list off the four fellows that we have for our 2023 program and also list the different courses so you guys can get a sense of the different areas that we want to be involved in accessibility, because accessibility can be incorporated into any field.
So first we have Susan Lamont. She is a professor at the Anne Arundel Community College, and she's a botany professor. We have Isabelle May, she's an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She is a professor of science communication principles. We have Scott Riley, he's an instructor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and he teaches a course on pharmaceutical data analytics. Lastly, we have Jason Farman. He's a professor and associate dean at University of Maryland, and he's actually involved in two courses this year, Advanced Digital Media Theory and American Culture in the Information Age. And something interesting about Advanced Digital Media Theory is he's doing work in AR and VR, so augmented reality and virtual reality. So that will be an interesting challenge for us getting more involved in that virtual reality space as it relates to accessibility and kind of thinking of ways we can make very visual elements like AR or VR accessible to blind and low-vision individuals.
Anil Lewis: I love the way you frame it as a challenge for us because we have to state very honestly that we don't know everything. Although we are proud of the expertise that we house at the Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Access, we don't know everything. But by entering into these types of relationships, it challenges us to learn more. And it also lends our lived experience to other individuals who are smarter than us in their specific subject areas. And that's when we create the overall win-win of outcomes here. The Accessibility Inclusion Fellowship program is modeled after the Teach Access Movement, I ll offer, and really was birthed out of some research that the Maryland Department of Disability did around barriers that create obstacles for blind people or people with disabilities to access information. So we're glad to be administering that program, and this is an exciting class for our fellows program.
So again, to point out, it's not just teaching individuals who are in the information technology or specifically digital access field. It's broader than that because we simultaneously educate the professors in a way that creates an accessible experience for any blind students that may want to participate in their classrooms. But it also creates a knowledge and awareness of accessibility for all of their students. And as they go out and work in their professional careers, accessibility would not be an afterthought.
And that's the overall purpose of the National Federation of the Blind Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility is to make sure accessibility is not an afterthought, that accessibility is introduced and enculturated in the development and design process of all technology, including websites, applications, et cetera. But our collaboration with the state of Maryland, specifically with the Maryland Department on Disability through the Nonvisual accessibility Initiative grant allows us to do this work in a very dynamic way. The National Federation of the Blind continues to invest significant resources to make sure that accessibility, awareness and acculturation is really expanded to a national level and in some instances international level. One of our first true resource commitments toward that end was the development and establishment of the International Braille and Technology Center. So Karl, why don't you tell us a little bit about the IBTC.
Karl Belanger: Yeah, so we run the International Braille and Technology Center that houses a wide variety of technology, both specifically designed for the blind and mainstream technology that is accessible. And every year we monitor new technologies that are coming out and obtain them, test them, potentially publish blog posts on them, and this year is no exception. We've acquired a few technologies over this past year. One of them is the LyriQ OCR reader. This is a standalone reading device. So scanning and optical character recognition is pretty ubiquitous on smartphones and computers, but there may still be occasions where you just want a standalone device that can scan a document and read it out loud. And the LyriQ does just that. It's a flat base that you put your document on with a camera arm that unfolds above it.
And what's notable about the LyriQ is how fast. You place your document on the stand, you don't have to hit a button, you don't have to do anything. As soon as it detects the document is there and it stops moving, it takes the picture, there's a click, and within a second or less, it is reading out the text from whatever document. It's also battery operated, so that is one device.
The next piece we've covered, so, smart watches are everywhere. You always hear about the latest Apple Watch or various other watches from different companies. So CENA recently seen, obtained and reviewed the Apple Watch, the Google Pixel Watch and the Samsung Galaxy Watch. And we are in the final stages of preparing an article on those watches and discussing the accessibility of them, why you might want to use them, their strengths and weaknesses, and going over how all that works with the smartphone accessibility features and the accessibility features built into the watches themselves.
And then the third product I want to mention briefly is there are still definitely a market for small, portable accessible book players, music players for the blind. Humanware just came out with their new Victor Reader Stream, as well as HIMS came out with their latest device called the SensePlayer, which is a device that, as I said, can play books in various formats, can stream internet radio, and it can also do scanning and optical character recognition.
Anil Lewis: Of course, that's only a sample of the items that we have in our International Braille and Technology Center. We have everything from tools that blind people use for entertainment, work productivity, voting. So any aspect of technology that blind people use to live, learn, work, and play, we try to acquire it, kick the wheels on it, make it available to our members and the general public, again, to create awareness and also to allow the developers to get feedback directly from blind individuals. In addition to our IBTC, we work to establish partnerships with individuals and entities who are developing that next generation of innovative technology that's going to help enhance the lives of blind people. And we're excited about a collaboration that we have with the American Printing House and Humanware to develop technology that we think is going to be a game changer in the education environment. Through our partnership, we're working to design and develop a tactile Braille display that allows real-time access to tactile images and Braille digitally using refreshable Braille displays. Karl, would you like to tell our listeners about the Monarch?
Karl Belanger: The Monarch is a very exciting new piece of technology. As Anil mentioned, it provides access to electronic tactile graphics for students in various levels of education. Tactile graphics have traditionally been hardcopy only through Braille paper or raised-line drawing kits, and electronic tactile graphics files have just needed to be embossed; there's been no way to display them electronically.
Similarly, electronic Braille displays have until now been pretty much limited to just one line of Braille. So the Monarch does both [Braille and] tactile graphics. It can take a file and display the line image that a tactile graphic is on the device and allow the user to pan around, zoom in, zoom out to see different parts of the graph and manipulate it. But then it can also display Braille. So many tactile graphics have Braille labels. Those can be displayed on the Monarch and it can also do up to ten lines of Braille. So if you're reading a textbook or other documentation, if you're looking at a structured math problem or other spatial concepts, having a device like that that can display all those things in the manner they were meant to be displayed instead of just one line at a time will be invaluable.
Anil Lewis: One of the other things that we're doing broadly is you heard me mention earlier about the involvement of blind people in the design and development phase. So we created a program that allows our partners who were really vested in their success, we create a space for them to tap into the lived experience and expertise of blind individuals in our membership that from novice to intermediate to expert, to help them evaluate their products. And we call that our Blind Users Innovating and Leading Design or our BUILD program. And Kennedy, you kind of administered most of those projects. You want to tell our listeners about it?
Kennedy Zimnik: So the BUILD program offers businesses and companies the opportunity to get feedback, like you said, from blind and low-vision individuals that might not be computer experts or AT experts. And especially for big companies, most of the blind or low-vision users that you're selling to aren't experts in the AT field. So we came up with the BUILD program, and the BUILD program offers, like I said, feedback to companies from blind and low-vision users from a wide range of skill levels wide.
Anil Lewis: I think that our most monumental effort over this past year has been when President Riccobono really at the encouragement of our members who were recognizing that the government was going to be distributing free COVID tests, charged our senior staff to go out, and we purchased samples of every COVID test we could because President Riccobono reached out to the Biden administration and says, "Which of these COVID tests are going to be accessible?" And of course, they moved at the speed of bureaucracy. And while we were waiting on that particular thing to happen, we did our own investigation. You guys opened up the packages and got access to the instructions and started testing all the various tests. I was surprised. You want to tell our listeners some of the learning that we got out of that initial investigation?
Kennedy Zimnik: Yeah. So the immediate issue is the test strips and actually getting the results. You can have an accessible box and large print instructions, but it comes down to the test at the end, you being able to tell if there's a red line or not in that control area. That's kind of where the main issue came.
Anil Lewis: Were any of the ones we investigated, were any of them accessible?
Kennedy Zimnik: Yes. So the devices that used a reader, something that you put the test strip in once you're done taking it, and then the reader reads out either on a device like a smartphone or the reader reads it itself, it actually reads the result and gives it to you in accessible manner.
Anil Lewis: Which devices were those?
Kennedy Zimnik: The main one that comes to mind is the Ellume test.
Karl Belanger: The other one is the Cue Health test. The Ellume on the surface behaves a little like your standard COVID test where you have the swab and then the test tube. You put the liquid in and drip it into the reader, but then the reader connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and through the Ellume app you could get accessible results.
The other test was by Cue Health, and this one worked a little differently in that you had a reader device that was paired with the smartphone that you could reuse. The Ellume Health, it was just that one time the reader did its thing and then you disposed of it. The Cue Health, the reader stayed paired, and then you had these cartridges where with Cue Health, there was no liquid to deal with or test tubes, and you just do the swab, stick it in the cartridge, and then stick the cartridge into the reader, which would do its thing, and again, report the results accessibly through an app on their smartphone.
Anil Lewis:
When the Biden administration finally started taking some action, we demonstrated to them the initial research that we had done, and then we were able to work collaboratively to start really testing other COVID tests that are out there and also work with them to create some best practice and some standards. Some of them have already been kind of preliminarily released, but we're looking forward to publishing more information. I'm just glad that even though we're working again at the speed of bureaucracy, we're working in concert with the federal government to do so. And I think that the positive reflection on that collaboration was that Jill Heemskerk of the National Institute of Health actually presented at our national convention back in 2022.
Her statements basically stated that they were pleased to work in this effort because it motivated her team, because they were used to doing things that were so static that now they finally had something that they could get excited about. And then that excitement is carrying over into other equipment and devices that they're evaluating. So what a tremendous impact we're going to have, if not only just COVID tests, but any other tests that they're working on, any other devices that they're working on. So this is really going to result in some true systemic change. I don't think we can top that. I think that that's really ... When you talk about global accessibility awareness, that I think is truly global accessibility awareness. A worldwide pandemic being impacted by our intervention, that's pretty powerful in my opinion.
So now we turn our attention to looking at the horizon to investigate what evolving technologies are going to be changing the lives or enhancing the lives of blind people moving forward, finding technologies that blind people can use to be beneficial, contributing members of society so that the world can benefit from our lived experience.
If you'd like to follow progress that we make in the coming months, please visit nfb.org/cena. That's nfb.org/cena or wait until next year. Remember, you can live the life you want. Blindness is not what holds you back.
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