Dear AccessWorld Author Bill Holton,
I really enjoyed reading your article, Running the ChromeVox Screen Reader on a Lenovo IdeaPad 100S Chromebook in the January 2016 issue of AccessWorld.? I am an assistive technology instructor and would love to try the Chrome OS on a 2010 Dell laptop.? Do you know where I can get complete instructions on installing it?
Jay Pellis
Dear Jay,
A good place to start is at the Chrome OS Wikipedia page.
If you simply do a google search for "Chrome OS on old laptop" you will find plenty of help.
Thanks,
Bill Holton
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I work for a community college, and one thing that disappoints me every year with CSUN is how products are designed around feature lists rather than use cases. In a use case, a real person is imagined using the device. And our use case, that of a library, classroom, or computer lab, seems never to be addressed.
Take for example a portable video magnifier. I want one that I can lock down to a desk or table. I don't want it to get stolen. But do they come with a standard Kensington lock port as do most modern laptops? No! Why can't the manufacturer include a method for locking the magnifier down and add that as a feature. Most of my low-vision students don't need HD resolution, but my administration needs some guarantee that an expensive device won't disappear out of a classroom!
Now look at braille displays, where feature-creep continues to dominate. I want a display with fewer frills, because it's too easy to press the wrong button. I would like a blind student to be able to sit at a computer and be using braille in five minutes without need for a massive orientation. How about a simple display that just works with all screen readers and doesn't have a braille keyboard, rocker bars, whiz wheels, multiple switches, display buttons, satellite buttons, and multiple chords to master. I'd like cursor routing buttons and an intuitive way to move the display back and forward and that's it. If the thing needs configuration, let that be doable on the computer, so a teacher can adjust it for different students.
Or, why not build a braille display directly in to a keyboard with braille labels on the keys? Blind people need to learn to type in the real world, so in this case, extra buttons aren't a factor. Baum tried this in the 1990s, but their device had multiple round buttons, square buttons, and tiny switches which caused confusion for the beginner.
My blind student might visit our computer lab to do research, complete homework, check in to his online class or take a proctored exam. He's not the owner of this display so it needs to be easy to master and not require so much memorization because he's using it for only an hour or two each week. The same goes even more for libraries, where equipment is used briefly by multiple people. The user shouldn't be able to get stuck in the setup mode, or press a key which will exit the current dialog box by mistake. ?It's as if some of these braille displays were deliberately designed to be as complicated as possible!
OCR is the same situation. I need a way to introduce OCR to newbies that's not overly complex. I want something that looks like a monitor with a built-in camera on a bar beneath it. You slide the page under the bar and there's no need to press a button: it simply magnifies and reads out loud. No keypad with a dozen keys whose purpose needs to be memorized, no foldable camera that will easily break, no scanner where the book needs to be aligned with exactitude. Perhaps one simple knob to adjust magnification, and if you press on the knob you can change the contrast. If the voice needs changing, the teacher can do it by connecting the device to a computer and through USB running a configuration utility. Again, a user in need of more features can graduate to Kurzweil or […] OpenBook.
And when these things run on batteries, they should have a real power off button. With the plethora of suspend features you find nowadays, devices self-discharge even when not in use and supposedly off. If it's labeled "Off," it should cause the device to stop using any power.
One point the manufacturers fail to grasp is that our time to spend one-on-one with individuals is limited. It would be great to put a newbie in front of the device and not have to hold the person's hand. It would be good to have technology that's been tested in library situations where casual walk-in patron use was planned as part of the design.
I think product managers figure if the product is too simple, a user will quickly outgrow it and complain it can't do more. But that's because they need to market the device to training centers and libraries, where its use will be casual. If an individual user wants more, they can always buy the company's more feature-rich offerings.
A shining example of design simplicity is the Easy NLS DAISY player with its brightly colored, braille labeled, intuitively shaped buttons. I really can teach that to someone in just a few minutes. And if they need additional features, they can graduate to the more complex Plextalk pocket or Victor Reader Stream.
At CSUN, why can't product managers have focus groups to learn from us rather than product announcements to sell to us? Bring in someone who has never used your device, give them a 30-second orientation, and videotape the user struggling to master your device. If it takes less than five minutes, give yourself a grade of A, Mr. Manufacturer, you're now on target with my use case.
Deborah Armstrong
