Hi Everyone,
This individual sent me an email in regard to the conference I am planning
here in Portland Oregon. He asks many technical questions related to
ergonomic tools and compliance issues related to phone and television
devices for people who are hard of hearing. I am not capable of answering
his questions. I was wondering if anyone might have some information for
him. If you do would you please email him at
[log in to unmask]
Thanks
Anne Cohen
d message ----------
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 15:38:47 -0700 (PDT)
> From: [log in to unmask]
> ------------------------------
> I've seen your sign in PCAT for the Diverse Abilities conference on
> May 4, 2000 which my schedule does not permit me to attend.
>
> Will you be providing alternate access to the session information?
>
> As a programmer, I'm particularly interested in the session on
> Computer Ergonomics. I think I know how to deal with keyboards (at
> work I can lower my chair enough so that my wrists are not bent
> backward) but I'd love to know how to deal with mice in lieu of
> being able to throw them away.
>
> (I hate mice: they're inherently non-ergonomic when it comes to
> precision movement. I've had occasion to use M$-based software for which
> one has to get the mouse-dropping attached to the magic pixel in order
> to do things -- I've been known to make patterns using millimeter
> graph paper and I can draw reasonable straight lines freehand, but I
> can't get mice to move correctly without a lot of effort -- precision
> work requires a pen-type device.)
>
> I wonder how someone with bad vision can see/interpret all those
> cryptic icons (long-live unix!).
>
> I'm also interested in devices for the hard-of-hearing (my mother is
> profoundly deaf). My mother would like to have a cell phone for
> emergencies, but it needs to be one she can use herself; I need a newphone
in my bedroom (the keypad died), but new phones don't work with
> my mother's hearing aid or with her old handsets.
>
> My mother also has trouble with background noise/music on the phone, on
> TV and in public.
>
> Another issue for my mother is television -- many programs are still not
> captioned. Also, there are times when TV stations display placards without
> checking to see that the information is not hidden by the captions.
> (I once called a station to tell them this: 911 was down and the
alternate
> number for our area was hidden.
> While I can register by phone at PSU (it's simple & clear), I found
> PCC's system impossible to use (they may have improved it by now); if I
> remember right they had a menu-based system better suited to a visual
> channel than an audio one.
>
> (Further note on phones: my mother and I agree with Donald A. Norman --
> voice mail should be deep-sixed.)
>
> Note on accessibility infrastructure: curb cuts are good for _anybody_
> with wheels (eg. shopping carts) and captions can be used by the hearing
> Your group is concerned with physical issues, and others are dealing
> with ethnicity and cultural differences. Is anyone concerned with
> minority brain-wiring? (Mine is wired for geometric drawing and
> computer programming and being shown how to do things I can get my
> hands on.)
>
> (I find writing teachers incomprehensible -- they live in a great,
> fog-shrouded morass which is principally composed of quicksand. Once you
> get past grammar and spelling, it's all squishy stuff and you can't
> tell where you are or where you're going; they tell students to
> write great quantities of verbiage about inappropriate or inane subjects
> without ever demonstrating how to do it.)
>
>
> as well as the deaf.
>
>
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