Tag: accessibility

assisitve technology for adults in the workplace

Posted on by AccessAbility Smyles

With the advent of Access to Work a goverment initiative that enables employees to access a range of services including asissitve technology has a significant impact on the workplace. So what kinds of technology and what needs can assistive technology help with differently abled people ( like this term as the more negetaive term – disabled people).

Sensory Impairments

Asisitve technology can enable those with visual impairment to have maginification available to them to enbale there visual impairment to be alleivate to a major extent. All software can be enhance through a toolbar that works with any software. Tools that enable enlragement of text for PDF’s and websites. Some of the tools are free or built into the operating systems but also can be met by admittedly expensive software but necessary to get the customising potentials of this software. Some visual conditions vary each day so this customisation offered byt these specialised software can aide access. For those with hearing impairement the use of hearing aids that can be customised to suit the situation is useful. Captioning tools especially for online meetings is key. Both free and padi for solutions can help those with hearing impairment to take part in meetings. Smart glasses with AI that can help hearing impaired users to interact with colleagues and customers as captions can be gernated diredtly to thr screen,

Physical Disabiliites

Access is now avaialble via specialised periphherals from eye-gaze to swtiches to joysticks and on-sceen keyboard. Moutning and positiioning are key to enable the user to access their hardware and fulfil their productivity in the workplace. Such users are generally wheelchair users and therefofre ramps and physical access to a desk for a wheelchair.

Neurodivergency

Perhaps the most significant category of need and the most impactful as solutions can almost make neurodivergency almost disappear. From spelling correction to mindmapping to organisational tools enable and empower the neurodivergent user to be productive. For those with ADHD prioritisation of tasks can be signifcantly impact the user in the workplace as their stress levels reduce onve that felling of being in control of your workflow is felt. For meetings thte use of AI can enable a revolution in note-taking means manual note takigin is history. Checking the AI notes is worth doing to ensure action points and notes are accurate. AI can also be used to comprise detailed breakdown and explanation of projects for those who find writing such documents difficult.

We have spoken in general terms so far. So what products do this? As an independent consultant I have to be aware of multiplatform solutions as well as a wide range of free and paid for solutions. So the following list is not exhaustive but essential

Visual Impairment

SuperNova form Dolphin Compute Systems – £425 https://www.visionaid.co.uk/supernova-magnifier

NVDA Screen reader – £free – https://www.visionaid.co.uk/supernova-magnifier

Windows 10/11 – £free – Magnication access within the operating system

Apple iOS devices – Zoom and Voice Over for maginifcation and contol

Hearing Imparment

Windows 10/11 – £free = captioning tools

PowerPoint – £free =captioning option

Microsoft Teams – £free – captioning

Caption Ed – subscription-based Lite £25.00 a month or £50.00 for prfessional. https://caption-ed.com/

XRAI Glasses – Free, Premium and Ultimate subscription packages for smart glasses https://xrai.glass/

Physical Disabilities

Incluisve Technology – one stop shop for switches, joysticks, mountings. https://www.inclusive.com/uk/

Neurodivergency

Texthelp Read&Write – £250 per year for individual users enterprise – talk to texthelp systems for detailed pricing for organisations – https://xrai.glass/

Global Tasks – access to work and talk to texthel for subsription model – https://www.texthelp.com/en-gb/solutions/dsa/global-tasks/

Grammarly – free grammar tools with ai https://www.grammarly.com/

Goblin Tools – £t – range of ai tools to aide writing for specific audiences – https://goblin.tools/

Co-Pilot – £free – artificial intelligence – great for finding research and pracical jobs – https://copilot.microsoft.com/

For a wider discussing of ai please look at and comment on my discussing ai blogsite. https://discussingai.blog

Echo connect to be discontinued

Posted on by AccessAbility Smyles

The above device is being discontinued. I presume to fit in line with digital devices that no longer need a landline. It’s due to finish at the end of February. I have a blind client who depends on this device to use her answerphone and access phonelines with auto answerting systems.

This raises the point. Does progress always have to involve changing the status quo? In disability accessbility this is a key question. Sudden and often inexplainable changes are foisted on the disability. Let me give you some recent examples .

  • smart speakers cannot access emails since 2015
  • TV guides no longer give information on local regional programmes
  • smart speakers don’t switch on TV’s , even though they can switch them off
  • smart speakers can no longer search for phone numbers and ring them

In the UK we have this thing called GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulation) which is there to protect individual rights. But when it actually blocks the rights of disabled person communication it becomes a barrier to access. At least I think some of the above changes are due to GDPR. All the above were once done on smart speakers.

Technicians love to change things. Again for disabled people change can mean the difference between access and non-access. Especially if you are blind and using a screenreader. I was helping someone this week who was blind and he was trying to navigate ChatGPT and there are broken and orphan links all over the site. The webpage looks visually fine but obviously changes have been made and not removed they remained and they are “visible” ( excuse the pun) to a screen reader! Making access to the site less navigable to a blind person.

If consideration is for all surely standard practise should be the inclusion of disabled people into the design process of any website or equipment to check whether it works for them. Apart from providing employment to disabled people it could give valuable inclusive practises that could be vital for the growing numbers of disabled people int the world.