Despite what mathematicians say, there are times when one plus one equals more than two. Said another way, sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Recently, the vision-impaired community witnessed an excellent example of this phenomenon when the folks at Be My Eyes and Microsoft teamed up to create an ever more powerful support option.
If you have never tried the free Be My Eyes app, stop reading this article and download the app immediately. It's available for both iOS and Android, and if you don't have a mobile device, the Be My Eyes service may just be reason enough to get one.
AccessWorld readers were first introduced to Be My Eyes in the February 2015 issue.
Initially, this groundbreaking remote video assistance service was only available for iOS, but last November we alerted readers that the app was also now available for Android.
Traditionally, Be My Eyes has relied on a worldwide network of over 850,000 volunteers to offer remote video assistance to help people with visual impairments with everything from locating which door says Enter to setting the double rinse cycle on an inaccessible washing machine. In the latest release of the Be My Eyes app, however, users will not only find the usual "Call first available volunteer" control, but a new "Specialized help" option designed to connect you with businesses and organizations when you need assistance with their products or services.
According to Hans Jørgen Wiberg, creator of Be My Eyes, "Contacting customer support through email or by phone isn't always ideal. Direct communication with a business's customer support agent could be a more vision-friendly alternative and less time consuming for you. If someone from the company could see the issue in real time, issues with their products or services could be resolved more efficiently."
This new service is being introduced with two offerings: Be My Eyes technical support to help with app issues, and the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk.
We introduced you to the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk way back in the December, 2013 issue. As we described then, users of accessibility products such as screen readers and braille displays can contact the Disability Answer Desk via email, chat, or phone to receive personalized help solving issues with their access-enabled Windows PC. Answer Desk members often offer to remote-connect directly to your computer to help solve the problem. But what if the problem is that you can't get the computer to talk, or even to start up so you can accept a remote connection?
"Be My Eyes provides a new and innovative way for Microsoft to offer our customers technical support," says Neil Barnett, Director of the Disability Answer Desk at Microsoft. "Users who access the 'Specialized help' option will be connected through video the same way they are today, but instead of reaching out to volunteers, they will work directly with a member of the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk to resolve a 'silent screen' or another Windows PC or Microsoft product or service."
At the time of this writing, the Be My Eyes Microsoft option was available to customers in the United States and 11 other countries. Check the Answer Desk website for phone, email, and chat contact information. Or even better, simply launch Be My Eyes.
According to Community Director Alexander Hauerslev Jensen, Be My Eyes is already in dialog with a number of banks, cable and telecommunications companies, blindness organizations and access technology suppliers whose customers/users could benefit from the service. Imagine, being able to call your broadband provider and not have to explain blindness the third time the tech asks you "What colors are the lights on the modem?"
The "Specialized help" option includes a button to email your own suggestions as to which companies you would like to see included. "We received over 300 requests the first day alone," says Hauerslev Jensen, who encourages users to add their feedback. "The more users who are asking for a company to offer the service, the easier It will be to convince them of the benefits."
Hauerslev Jensen says users should expect more companies to appear on the "Expert help" menu within the next month or so, including several household names. Needless to say, here at AccessWorld it's our hope that Apple and Google will be among the first additions.
And speaking of Google…
Google Help Desk
Until recently, Chromebook and Accessible Android users had to subscribe to the Eyes-Free Google group in order to receive any sort of technical support. "The Google Accessibility team reads every one of the emails, and responds directly to users when appropriate," states Kyndra LoCoco, who joined Google two years ago as their Program Community Manager. The Eyes-Free list is extremely high-volume, however, with up to several hundred posts per day. Consequently, any help a novice Talkback, BrailleBack, or ChromeVox user may receive can easily be lost in the deluge.
New users will definitely want to check out their company's TalkBack and BrailleBack Help Pages. The Google Accessibility team has also created a Chrome YouTube series, which goes into great detail about how to use the Chrome browser on Windows, Mac, and Chromebooks using keyboard commands. But again, until now, at least, individual help could be difficult to obtain, both for end users and teachers, who lack necessary training to help their visually impaired students use the Chromebooks that are increasingly popular with school districts.
"Here at Google we've been working for a while to gather the resources to offer help on a more individual basis," says LoCoco, and toward that end, the Google Accessibility Team has now taken a first tentative step toward providing the same level of accessibility assistance already offered by Apple, Microsoft, and most recently, Amazon. Users both novice and experienced can now email support English-language questions about Android and Chrome accessibility and receive a personalized reply. Currently, the auto-reply "request received" message states that responses can take up to 72 hours, but several sample support questions sent during standard work hours of 9-5 PT generated high-quality replies in 30 minutes to 3 hours. Requests sent late Friday afternoons may actually take the full 72 hours. Response times may lag as more users discover and begin using this new support option, but according to LoCoco, "We're just gearing up. We are still in the process of hiring and training access support technicians, and our goal is to add chat and telephone support options as soon as possible."
I did send several email questions to the new support address, and here is a response I received when I asked about re-adding previously purchased voices to a new Android device:
Thank you for contacting the Google disability support team!
I understand that you are looking for your purchased voices on your Text to speech engine. Since you purchased or downloaded the voices from the Play Store, try going back to the list of apps purchased or downloaded and re-download those voices again.
Also, I would suggest try looking for the voices you purchased in your preferred text-to speech engine. Follow these steps below:
Open your device's Settings app. Open Accessibility, and then TalkBack. Open Settings. Then under the speech, select the Text to speech settings. Find your Text to speech engine. (by default Google Text- to-speech engine). Tap on settings button right to your TTS engine. Tap on install voice data. You should be able to it find there. If you face difficulty in any of the above mentioned steps and/or if these steps don't work for you, do let us know, so that we can assist you.
As for a Be My Eyes Expert listing? "We've been exploring multiple additional support options, including Be My Eyes, and this is an avenue we are seriously considering," says LoCoco.
Related articles:
- Be My Eyes Now Available for Android by Bill Holton
- Instant Access to Information with Aira: An Introduction (Part 1 of 2) by Janet Ingber
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