Dear AccessWorld readers,

Eight years ago, AccessWorld implemented a "Comment on this article" link at the end of each article to bring your comments, questions, and ideas right to my inbox. Since that time, hundreds of you have written to share your thoughts, many of which have been shared in the monthly "Letters to the Editor" column. Your feedback has been extremely valuable to the AccessWorld team and has helped us grow, enrich our content, and better understand your access interests and challenges. I thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

One recent change prompted by reader feedback is the reinstitution of the “Read the Full Issue” link at the bottom of AccessWorld’s table of contents page. When this feature was temporarily unavailable during the beginning of our webpage redesign, we definitely heard from you, and as a result, it is back as of the June 2019 issue.

Also, we have heard from readers who are disappointed due to the discontinuation of the AccessWorld app. We hear you, and we understand your points and concerns. Please know we are working very diligently to make the new AccessWorld website a very user-friendly site for computer and especially mobile users. So, please stay with us while the transformation is in process.

We also heard from readers who are interested in more employment related content. AccessWorld has responded by developing a new monthly column called Employment Matters. In this column, Deborah Kendrick interviews successfully employed people with visual impairments to dig into the reasons for their success, learn how they overcame hurdles, and extract advice and encouragement for fellow blind and visually impaired job seekers. One of the goals of this column is to identify the technical and interpersonal skills, attributes, attitudes, and strategies readers can emulate and incorporate into their own career paths. Continuing in the employment vein, in this issue AccessWorld turns an eye toward entrepreneurship. Traditionally, job seekers scour job listings in publications, on career websites, company websites, on apps, and network with acquaintances to find job openings. But have you thought about creating your own opportunities by starting your own business?

If finding a job has been challenging for you, it may be time to shift your mindset and think of the opportunities that may exist for you as a business owner. In this issue, you will learn about the uber-successful clothing venture started by two blind brothers, the business communication tool Slack, and the strides that have taken place in the accessibility of business/accounting software such as FreshBooks. The Internet has made it easier than ever to start your own business from home.

If you happen to be a podcast listener like I am, when it comes to career and business information, I listen to The Ken Coleman Show and Entre Leadership. These two podcasts provide insightful, actionable information, and I recommend you search for these shows wherever you listen to podcasts. For readers who still haven't taken the opportunity, I encourage you to send me your comments on articles and your thoughts on any additional topics you would like to see addressed in AccessWorld.

We hope you enjoyed the July 2019 Back-to-School issue and gained information to help with getting ready for the upcoming school year.

Sincerely,

Lee Huffman, AccessWorld Editor-in-Chief

American Foundation for the Blind

Bill Holton

There are any number of good reasons why you might want to start a business. Perhaps you feel passionate about an idea, new product, or service. Perhaps you want to earn enough to retire early. Or you might yearn for the no-boss independence that entrepreneurship can offer, or the thrill and satisfaction of being able to say, “I built that.”

For Bradford and Bryan Manning, AKA Two Blind Brothers, the business idea began with a coincidence. “In 2016 I had just moved to Manhattan with my job selling banking software, and my brother, Bradford, was showing me around downtown," explains Bryan. "At one point we wandered into Bloomingdales, and that’s when we got separated.” Here Bradford picks up the story: “We finally caught up with each other outside the store. We both had shopping bags…and inside each was the exact same t-shirt. Same color, same design, the very same fabric.”

The brothers are both blind due to Stargardt's Disease, a form of juvenile macular degeneration. Like many people with visual impairments, they do a lot of their shopping by touch, and, consequently, they wound up with the very same shirt because of the fabric. “It was extremely soft,” says Bradford.

They shared the story with friends. “We should go into business making super-soft t-shirts,” they joked, until one night one of their friends piped up: “You know, if you guys are serious, I can help you with the design and finding the right fabric.”

Bradford was working for a small private equity firm. Neither brother dared drop everything and risk everything on an unproven longshot. “Next to opening a restaurant, fashion is probably the riskiest business to enter,” says Bradford. But the brothers decided to take on the idea as a nights-and-weekend side project. They pitched in a few thousand bucks each as seed money, and since they were both active with Foundation for Fighting Blindness, from the start they planned to donate any profits to the organization.

Bradford and Bryan began checking out fabric swatches in sample books from companies around the world. They finally decided to create their own, a tri-blend material made of 66 percent bamboo, 28 percent cotton, and 6 percent spandex.

“Bamboo gives the fabric material a new level of softness beyond what typical cotton and silk can give you,” says Bryan. “That’s because bamboo fibers are long, circular, and they are not chemically treated, which means the fabric features no rough, grainy material that can irritate the skin.”

“We went through at least seven different prototypes, altering the length and style” says Bradford. “On one version we included a braille label, but it came back upside down.”

When the brothers were satisfied with the design, they engaged a local garment jobber to sew 200 shirts. Bradford built a Squarespace website, and he and Bryan began to hit up family and friends to “do us a favor and buy a shirt.”

Another friend helped out by shooting a video featuring the brothers telling their story and pitching their tees. “We re-edited the video and used social media to hit specific audiences, like people who are interested in high-quality t-shirts, Manhattan shoppers, and friends of blindness organizations,” says Bradford.

A local Fox news affiliate caught the video and produced and aired a feature of their own. “Sales picked up, but it was still just a trickle,” Bryan recalls.

Bradford’s work assistant helped out with shipping. “Again, we recut the news video and used social media to spread our message,” says Bradford. “And then the Ellen Degeneres Show called, and that nearly sank us.”

“They asked if we’d mind gifting 300 shirts to members of their audience,” Bryan still shudders. "That was pretty much our entire inventory,” adds Bradford. But they decided to go ahead.

Happily, during their segment on the Ellen show Ellen pulled out her checkbook and wound up buying $30,000 worth of t-shirts for the entire audience.

“That’s when the orders began to pour in—over a thousand, and we didn’t have any stock left,” says Bryan.

The brothers sent emails explaining the delay and offering to cancel orders if the customer wanted. “I think we wound up with two cancelations,” Bradford recalls.

The entrepreneurial ball was now rolling, and in short order the momentum grew with endorsements from Richard Branson, Ashton Kutcher, and another feature story on NBC News. It was time to expand.

“One of the first things we did was hire someone to redo the TwoBlindBrothers.com website,” says Bradford. “I had done an OK job on Squarespace, but their platform wasn’t the most accessible; there were a lot of problems. For example, the background on our product shots clashed with the visual theme of the site. We moved to Shopify, which not only has its own shopping cart, which Squarespace didn’t offer at the time, it also allowed us to start offering promotional discount codes.”

The brothers engaged an accountant to help make sense of their disorganized business records and keep their books, and brought on Bradford’s work assistant as their first full-time employee. Next was a friend who’d worked as a fashion buyer, who helped extend their line to other products, including three button pullovers, bottoms, and hoodies. The brothers themselves work for minimum wage, for the health insurance, and are currently in the process of converting the business from an LLC to a foundation similar to the one that sells Newman’s Own products so profits aren’t taxed before they can be donated.

In their three years in business, Two Blind Brothers has donated over $400,000 to Foundation Fighting Blindness. And despite the fact that Bradford and Bryan are not out to make a profit, they do have some words of encouragement and tried and tested advice for people with visual impairments who have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Tips for Entrepreneurs with Visual Impairments

Start Slow

In times of yore if you wanted to start a company with national or international reach you had to start with millions of dollars in capital, a formal business plan, lines of credit, office space, and an advertising agency. “These days you can launch a business from your laptop computer,” says Bryan. “You don’t have to go bet-the-farm all in. You can work your regular job and run your business part time nights and weekends. That’s how these Two Blind Brothers got started.”

Get Social

“One of the reasons it’s so easy these days to build an audience or marketplace is the existence of social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest,” notes Bradford. “These platforms enable you to aim your marketing to an extremely niche customer base, which is perfect if the customers for your product or service are few and far between.” Perhaps you make novelty candles in the shape of bowling pins. Or maybe your medical transcription hours just got cut in half and you’d like to pick up the financial shortfall by transcribing podcasts so they can be indexed and searched. “Today’s social media enables you to reach out to any number of small but high-potential markets,” Bradford notes. “That’s what we were doing when we recut our videos and put them in front of different audiences, such as Manhattan shoppers, luxury t-shirt consumers, and supporters of blindness research.”

Network

You may not have all the skills you need to market, sell and ship those bowling pin candles, but these days it’s easier than ever to find free help. Can’t quite get the hang of creating an eBay store? The site features any number of help forums where users help each other. “We didn’t know what was involved in designing a producing a super-soft t-shirt, but we knew people who did, and they were willing to give us a leg up,” says Bryan.

Outsource, Outsource, Outsource!

If you’re designing and selling hand-made sweaters, stick to your knitting, so to speak. Focus on what you do best, and hire others to do the rest. “We never screened insurance companies when it was time to offer health insurance,” says Bryan. “We hired an HR company, which left us more time to do what we do best: create new products and market them.” Is your podcast taking off and you’d like to begin offering searchable transcripts? Sure, you could hunt and peck out a few dozen words a minute, but how much content could you produce in the same hours it takes that medical transcriptionist looking for extra work to zip out a letter-perfect transcription?

On one point Bryan and Bradford agree wholeheartedly, “times have never been better for a blind individual to start his or her own business.”

“Maybe I can’t get a job running a register at Duane Reade, but I can use all of my accessibility skills and tools to create a product and market and sell it worldwide,” says Bradford. “Being visually impaired and being an entrepreneur have a lot in common,” adds Bryan. “Operating a successful business means being thrown into a world where you rely on independence and resourcefulness to survive and succeed. A good deal of entrepreneurship is creative problem-solving. You have to get comfortable facing new challenges, being assertive and creative."

Sound familiar?

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Deborah Kendrick

If you tend to see a connection between biology and destiny, Dan Zingaro's career path holds little in the way of surprise. Raised by a computer programmer dad and a teacher mom, his own career choice as a professor of computer science rings of continuity for everyone in the family. One of his earliest memories, he says, is of sitting with his dad at a computer (not yet one that could speak to him or show him braille) and crafting a math game that played a happy tune when the player finished answering the addition and subtraction facts with sufficient accuracy and speed. He remembers the game and concocting the code. He doesn't particularly remember the details of how he kept track of what was on the screen.

Today, Zingaro teaches college students to develop computer programs. With a braille display in his hands, he rapidly types code that a few hundred students at a time observe projected on the overhead monitor. As students select multiple choice responses to his questions with their clickers, the percentages of their responses are available to him on the same braille display, enabling him to adjust the pace of instruction accordingly. He loves his job, his subject, and his students. And the love apparently runs both ways.

Early in 2019, as he approached the sixth anniversary of his teaching career in the mathematical and computational sciences department at the University of Toronto, he was selected as a recipient of the Early Teaching Career Award. The honor is given to those still within their first six years of teaching and the selection is determined, in part, by votes from the students themselves.

Professionally, Zingaro is an assistant professor of computer science. After spending a delightful slice of time in conversation with him, however, I could see how he might arguably add philosopher to his resume. A self-proclaimed introvert, Zingaro is intelligent, thoughtful and, despite only 36 years to date on the planet, extremely wise.

Early Childhood

Although he doesn’t know the cause of his blindness, Zingaro has been completely blind his whole life. His parents both learned to write braille when he was small and made books for him to help him learn to read braille at an early age. He attended the public school that was within walking distance of his home, and where his younger brother and sister attended as well. Due to his mom’s strong advocacy, he had a resource teacher in his school building as well as a braille transcriber. By age 10 or 11, he had a computer and a braille embosser at school so that he could produce anything he needed to review quickly in hard copy braille.

His parents, he says, never discouraged him from doing anything that interested him.

Accessible Games and Philosophy

While still a student himself, Dan Zingaro wrote a number of accessible games with a programming friend and sold them to blind customers over the Internet. It was something he loved doing and he loved the popularity the games enjoyed. After college, getting a master’s degree and a PhD, left him little time to play or produce games.

About five years ago, he obtained permission to make the games available free of charge (look for BSC Games and Dan Z Games). While they are no longer being updated, he says many will still work on Windows computers.

Although building those games was once a priority, here is a perfect example of Dan Zingaro’s wisdom and calm demeanor: “There are other priorities now,” he says simply. “That door is closed, but closing doors can be freeing—closing one may open a few others.”

Teaching Style

Zingaro takes the campus shuttle to work each day and navigates to and from the classroom with his white cane. When teaching, he uses his refreshable braille display to communicate the principles of writing computer code to his students and to read their collective responses. Today, it's all more or less unremarkable. Getting to this point, of course, involved work and thoughtful planning.

First, he had to work with the developers of the software employing the student clickers for voting to render its results accessible to him. Perhaps more importantly, he developed his own style of introducing himself and his methods to his students.

Introductory computer science classes may have as many as 1,200 students, with Zingaro lecturing to 200 or so at a time. On the first day, he shows them his braille display, (a HumanWare Brailliant), explains that it is paired via Bluetooth with the same computer that is displaying visual information to them, and then shows them his flip phone. The former dazzles them and the latter surprises. Unlike the stereotypical computer science expert, Zingaro is not one to race after the latest technology. He does not own a smart phone or tablet. He has a laptop, a braille display, and a flip phone. (I value walks and quiet time,” he says, “and people know not to send me text messages.”

If there is a message about his blindness that he conveys to students on that first day in class, it is perhaps that blindness is not relevant. “I love questions from students about disability,” he says. “Asking questions is how people learn. Once those questions are answered, they move on.”

That said, he is comfortable talking about his blindness and relishes those opportunities to share what he has learned with others. He recalls an occasion when an extremely distraught student sat in his office, overwhelmed by barriers and misconceptions, and who wept with relief that here, at last, was someone who understood his challenges.

All challenges, in Zingaro’s view, are opportunities. He credits his partner, Canadian poet Doyali Islam, with pointing that out to him. He sees challenges not as obstacles but as opportunities to find solutions.

Essential Tools

Asked about essential tools on his job, Dan Zingaro’s answers came easily: white cane, braille display, and the NVDA screen reading software. Although he was once a JAWS beta tester, when that license expired he found he was already using NVDA and simply stayed the course.

After a moment’s hesitation, he added one more favorite tool: his Dot watch! The Dot watch (which enables him to read the time by inconspicuously touching the watch’s four braille cells) is a new piece of technology that he says he has embraced with a bit of evangelical fervor. Being able to check the time without attracting attention keeps him on track with his teaching and helps him maintain his desired image of the professor who has a few unusual ways of accomplishing tasks.

Dream Builders, Dream Stoppers

Dan believes that his success is largely due to the strong support and encouragement he has received most of his life from family, teachers, and others. First, of course, were his parents — both of whom learned braille in his early childhood in order to make braille storybooks for him as a beginning reader. Next was his resource teacher, a dedicated educator who, as it happened, had specialized in mathematics and computer science instruction before becoming a teacher of the visually impaired. Consequently, it was natural and intuitive for him to nurture Zingaro's early inclination toward mathematics and computer science. (Today, that teacher has retired and the two continue to be friends, occasionally meeting for lunch and conversation.)

Not everyone, of course, found Dan's academic pursuits to be inspiring or laudable. One naysaying professor, in particular, remains vivid in Dan Zingaro's memory.

"When this professor saw that I had registered for his class," Dan recalls, "he emailed me to tell me not to come." The class was too visual, the professor believed, too difficult. "I can not help you. ... You will not be successful."

Dan decided not to nurture the self-doubt that professor's negativism had sparked in his brain. He secretly vowed instead that one day he would keynote at that same university and be respected there for his knowledge and ability. That fantasy did, in fact, materialize as reality four years ago. When Dan was invited to give a presentation, he admits giving some thought to a vision of blasting that professor with caustic remarks. He didn’t. He did shake the man’s hand, concluded that this was simply not a very nice person, and said nothing to recall the unpleasant past interaction. Instead, he enjoyed the success of his presentation and the respect it earned him from colleagues.

He is grateful to have arrived at his chosen destination—a successful computer science professor, about to begin a year’s sabbatical during which he hopes to complete a book on computer science. His book, he hopes, will be completely accessible.

Although a self-proclaimed quiet introvert, Zingaro says he also has a bit of an attraction for danger. While accompanying his partner on a book tour to Seattle not long ago, he went sky-diving. One of his favorite pastimes, alone or with others, is indoor rock climbing. He loves hiking and walking and says he has a bit of a Netflix habit, too.

His gratitude and contentment for the life he lives radiate outward in his desire to share with others. Every professor, he believes, should welcome students with or without disabilities or they simply should not be teaching. He loves his students and welcomes challenges with eagerness.

Asked about advice for others who are blind or low vision and seeking a similar career, his responses come with ease and clarity. Don’t compromise. Pursue your own dream. Professors have expertise in one thing and not all things, so if one tries to discourage your dream, don’t listen. Finally, he says, regard your time as the valuable commodity it is. All to often, he believes, we are careful with our money but not so much with our time. His resistance to having a smart phone is just one indication that he follows his own advice.

Dr. Daniel Zingaro is clearly one sparkling example that the 30 percent of people with visual impairments who have found successful and satisfying employment may be growing.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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J.J. Meddaugh

When working in a busy office environment, effective communication among team members is one of the keys to success. Traditionally, email has been the most popular way to communicate, but having a conversation using email can often become both inefficient and time-consuming. The traditional phone call can be a great way to quickly share information or discuss strategy, but it usually leaves no record of the conversation, making it more difficult to process or act on information.

Many companies are turning to robust chat-based solutions to allow for real-time collaboration and discussion within teams and departments. In this article, we will focus on one such solution, Slack, which is being used by large and small companies and teams both to improve communication. Slack is not only a very useful tool for collaboration, but also sports a variety of accessibility features.

What is Slack?

Slack stands for “Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge” and is a chat and messaging app that is now used by over three quarters of Fortune 100 companies. It is available on most major platforms including Windows and Mac computers as well as iOS and Android devices.

To use slack, teams create a workspace, which will include all of the channels, users, and messages for that team. Like other chat apps, each participant can choose a username, send public or private messages, and browse or search sent messages.

Slack offers both free and paid plans. The free plan does not limit the number of channels or participants, supports one-on-one voice and video calling, allows searchable access to the last 10,000 sent messages, and accommodates up to 10 integrations (more on that below). The paid plan, which starts at $5 per user per month, does not limit the number of accessible sent messages, allows for multi-person conferences, and accommodates an unlimited number of integrations.

Slack Features

Slack groups conversations into channels, which can be used for virtually any purpose. Channels can be public and open to all team members or private and limited to a subset of users. A small team may be able to manage by using a single channel for everything, while larger teams will likely want to split up conversations into project-specific channels. It's easy to switch between channels or search through conversations. Messages can be threaded; files, emoji, and images can be attached to individual messages; and website links can be shared with a channel’s members.

You don't need to be online to receive messages, and you can browse through what you missed when you return. You can set up notifications to alert you of any new messages or just those that mention you, and you can set up a Do Not Disturb schedule.

Slack Integrations

One of the features that sets Slack apart from other apps is the countless integrations that extend the functionality of the app. Integrations allow Slack to work with other apps, websites, and services to provide a seamless experience. For example, you can link a Google Calendar to a Slack channel, and have notifications about new events, meeting reminders, or event cancelations sent directly to that channel. The Dropbox and Google Drive integrations let you view files that are posted on these services directly in Slack. Other integrations are just silly, such as one which dispenses random fortunes.

Accessibility Features in Slack

When using the Windows 10 app, a variety of keyboard shortcuts are included for easier navigation. For example, F6 can be used to move between major sections of the app, such as the list of messages and the new message box. Other keyboard commands are included for switching between channels, moving between messages, or changing the text size. You can press Control + Slash to get a list of keyboard shortcuts.

When a screen reader such as JAWS, NVDA, or Narrator is being used, Slack will automatically read messages in a channel when pressing the Up or Down Arrow keys. New messages are also read automatically as they are sent, and you can assign different sounds for messages in different workspaces. When typing a new message, you can use autocompletion to fill in usernames or channel names. Usernames begin with an @ sign, and typing the @ sign will bring up a list of possible matches. Typing the @ sign followed by the first few letters of the username will filter the list to matching usernames.

When using a screen reader, it's a good idea to turn off any feature that may automatically switch modes for Web content. JAWS users should turn off Auto Forms mode in Settings Center while NVDA users should turn off Automatic Focus Mode in Settings. This is because the Slack Windows app behaves much like a webpage, and Slack’s built-in keyboard shortcuts will often be overridden when a screen reader is in a virtual buffer or browse mode.

The iOS and Android apps have been tailored to work well with screen reading and magnification tools. Buttons and controls are labeled, and a variety of low-vision options are included such as Dark Mode. While we have not tested the Mac app directly, some users are reporting a less-than-optimal experience as of this writing. Slack does have dedicated accessibility engineers on their staff and has been working for the past two years to improve the usability of their apps across platforms, so improvements may very well be in the pipeline.

Slack Versus Other Tools

One comment that new users often mention when referring to Slack is that they don’t want to install yet another messaging app, since they already have a variety of tools at their disposal. While Slack is by no means a perfect solution for every task, I find it more useful than other tools for a few reasons. Facebook, for instance, requires the user to have an account on its service, something that not everyone is willing to do, and which has a tendency to blur the distinction between personal and business spaces. WhatsApp is a good app for real-time chatting, but generally links accounts to a user’s phone number, a piece of information that some may not wish to share. Twitter can be good for one-on-one messaging, but again requires an account and does not work well for group conversations. And anyone sitting with thousands of messages in their email inbox will likely speak of the pitfalls of the most classic of electronic communication styles. Slack is cross-platform, integrates with hundreds of other apps, and provides a bevy of features that help it meet the needs for millions of users.

On the flipside, it's possible to become overwhelmed by the amount of conversation in a Slack channel, and be sidetracked by never-ending chats that lead to lost productivity. Also, other forms of communication such as email may be better-suited for long-form messages.

Conclusion

Whether you are starting your own team for a business, nonprofit, or a group of friends, or you are planning on working for a large company that uses numerous communications tools, Slack may very well become a part of your life. Even if you do not currently have a team but are thinking of getting a job soon, go ahead and try out Slack for free so you can get used to its features and interface. It’s one more tool that can be used to increase productivity and help you, as Slack once put it, “Be less busy.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Jamie Pauls

Many AccessWorld readers are familiar with Mystic Access, a company that provides technology training for blind people in a number of ways including audio tutorials, webinars, and one-on-one training packages. Mystic Access also sells products such as Bluetooth headphones bundled with tutorials on how to use the product as a blind person. Even if you don't purchase products directly from Mystic Access, you can still buy a tutorial on how to use the product more efficiently. Their regular podcasts feature interviews with a variety of people related to the field of blindness as well as information about upcoming products from the company. Free Zoom webinars cover many topics including how to back up your important data efficiently. It's also possible to get paid one-on-one training from Mystic Access on a number of topics including how to use your iPhone.

Mystic Access uses a variety of employment strategies to produce this diverse range of products and resources. Between contracting individuals to teach classes, record tutorials, and the other services that the company offers, a robust, accessible accounting program is imperative.

The company's founder, Chris Grabowski, needed an accessible solution for keeping his financial records in order. One day while listening to a podcast on the TWIT network, he heard an advertisement for the accounting software known as FreshBooks. He decided to give the product a try, and was pleased with what he discovered.

With FreshBooks, it's possible to track time and expenses related to the various projects you're working on at any given time. Anyone who does contract work with a company that uses FreshBooks can have their own FreshBooks account mirrored into the company's account. FreshBooks makes sending detailed invoices easy as well. FreshBooks can be integrated with PayPal or Stripe to provide a variety of payment options for the customer. Besides using a credit card, it is also possible for the client to pay online or through electronic funds transfers from a bank. When it comes time to do your taxes, FreshBooks allows for the printing out of categorized expense sheets. Clients can be given login information to easily stay up-to-date on the progress of their project. When you send an invoice to a client, you can see when the client viewed the invoice, thereby reducing the likelihood that the client would be able to claim lack of receipt as the reason for not paying promptly. Also, the software can send friendly reminders about a late invoice. It's possible to link your bank account so that purchases can automatically appear in FreshBooks as expenses. While at a restaurant, you can take a picture of your receipt and import it into FreshBooks, eliminating the need for keeping track of paper receipts while you're on a business trip.

FreshBooks offers a range of plans based on how many clients your business will work with over the course of time. FreshBooks Lite starts at $15 per month, and you can try it for free. Premium and Plus cost more, and you can customize plans for larger business needs if desired.

Grabowski says that FreshBooks "just works" with the various screen readers he has used over the years, and the company's mobile apps work quite nicely from an accessibility standpoint as well. Everything can be done using the FreshBooks iOS or Android apps as opposed to the desktop application, and your data lives in the cloud so you can access your information from anywhere. When issues have arisen with accessibility, Grabowski has found the company to be willing to fix the problems.

When asked if he felt that any particular type of business owner should especially consider FreshBooks as an accounting package, he stated that pretty much any interested business owner should give the product a try. Aside from an AppleVis entry dating back to 2014, there doesn't appear to be much discussion of FreshBooks from within the blind community. Whether this speaks more to a small number of business owners in the blind community or to the presence of other viable accounting solutions such as QuickBooks is hard to say. Grabowski certainly makes FreshBooks sound like a software solution worth considering if you wish to keep your business' financial affairs running smoothly as a blind person. Perhaps others should give FreshBooks a try and share your own experiences with AccessWorld.

As this article was being finalized, Grabowski informed AccessWorld that FreshBooks has taken a step backward in terms of accessibility with its latest update. For now, you will want to use FreshBooks Classic which is slightly cheaper and has slightly fewer features. The company is working to restore accessibility to its full-featured product in the near future. Here is an article highlighting the differences between FreshBooks and FreshBooks Classic.

Software Accessibility for the Blind Business Owner

It isn't hard to find interviews such as those on Blind Bargains with representatives from Intuit discussing the accessibility of QuickBooks and many will undoubtedly choose this option for their accounting needs. Perhaps even more important than the product is the fact that such software is being made increasingly accessible to blind business owners. Not only are increasing numbers of blind people becoming gainfully employed, but it's becoming less and less of a challenge for blind entrepreneurs to successfully own and operate their own businesses. No one understands the needs of the blind community better than blind people themselves, and neither can anybody serve the needs of the blind community better than blind business owners.

Gone are the days when a blind business owner must not only figure out which accounting solution to use, but also which screen reader works exclusively with that software. Today, software developers, whether on Windows, Mac, Android or iOS, are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of building their products with accessibility in mind from the ground up. The reduced or even eliminated cost of screen readers has brought costs down considerably for the blind business owner. Finally, being truly able to do business anywhere from an Android or iOS device has boosted the productivity of most everyone, blind or sighted. Here's hoping that trends continue to move in favor of the blind entrepreneur.

The Bottom Line

FreshBooks Cloud Accounting offers desktop and mobile apps that are accessible without the need for scripts or add-ons. The software offers a free trial, and various plans can be purchased starting at $15 per month based on your business needs. While you're checking out FreshBooks, don't hesitate to take a look at everything Mystic Access has to offer as well.

Business Owners With Visual Impairments: We Want to Hear from You

Do you have some experiences with accounting software that you would like to share? Perhaps you have had great success, or possibly you have run into some serious roadblocks. Do you have a list of accessibility concerns you'd like to see mainstream software developers address? Maybe you have questions about running a business from a technology perspective that you would like addressed in future issues of AccessWorld. Whatever your thoughts or feelings, we would love to hear from you. Feel free to drop us a line and sound off! We value your input, and so do the developers of accounting solutions such as FreshBooks. Together, we can make the world a better place for blind entrepreneurs everywhere.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Steven Kelley

Access to Android-compatible text and object recognition just got easier with the launch of the Speak! app, available as a free download from the Google Play store. Envision AI, the other viable Android recognition app, is free for 14 days and then you must either select a subscription plan or limit your monthly use of the app. Plans include a $4.99/month, $39.99/annual, or $199.99/lifetime.

The developer of Speak! Is Eyal Hochberg, an engineer based in Tel Aviv. Hochberg explains that for quite some time he’s been “thinking about how technology can improve the lives of people with disabilities and give them more independence.” Speak! is a project he pursues in his free time. According to Hochberg, the cloud-based services driving AI products can be costly, and some companies offset the cost by charging a subscription. Hochberg explains that with Speak!, on the other hand, “I take these services and work very hard to enhance them to get as close as possible to cloud quality. Another benefit of this approach is that the app works offline. For users who pay for Internet data that might make a big cost difference.”

How does Speak! compare to Envision AI? While we might all applaud the developer’s desire to keep the app free, if it doesn’t provide the same level of quality as Envision AI, it may not be as useful.

Getting Started and Recognizing Text with Speak!

Speak! offers many of the same features found in Envision AI. When the app is first opened, you will find three main buttons at the bottom of the screen: Read Text, Scan, and Google. When you double tap the Read Text button, the app snaps a picture of whatever is in front of the camera and begins reading any recognized text. This can be compared to the Document button in Envision, within the Text menu. Speak! is self-voicing, so it’s not necessary for TalkBack to be on for text to be spoken. You can pause, fast-forward, and reverse the reading using buttons at the bottom of the screen. Adjust the speech rate in the Settings menu on the top right of the screen.

One of the immediate differences in capturing text on Speak! versus Envision AI is that Speak! does not prompt you regarding framing the image. When a target document isn't framed properly, Envision AI might prompt with “Not all edges are visible” and will capture the image automatically once the edges are visible, or when you tap the screen. Though not always accurate, this is certainly a handy feature. Speak! will automatically align text when processing, though it may take some practice to position the camera to capture all the text on a page.

The Scan Menu

The Scan button has a sub-menu that includes Text, Barcode, Object, and Color.

Text

The Text button on Speak! works similarly to the Instant button on Envision. When selected, both apps will look for text within the camera frame to interpret. In this mode, Speak! does offer you guidance by vibrating as it frames the text, and the app begins reading automatically once text is framed. Speak! and Envision AI both permit a quick new read of the next item by tapping either the Restart on Speak! or Instant on Envision.

Barcode

Tapping the Barcode menu item in Speak! initiates a search for a barcode within the camera frame. While testing this feature, I specifically chose dimmer light and several cylindrical products. Speak! And Envision AI were nearly equal in their performance. Envision AI, however, took several tries to locate the barcode on a spice bottle, while Speak! located it very quickly.

When a barcode is identified, Speak! opens the product specs in Google, which can then be read by TalkBack or Select to Speak. Envision AI, on the other hand, speaks the name and a brief description of the item. If you're in a grocery store, you might find the Envision AI barcode scan handier because it's faster. If you're looking for more product details, you might find the immediate link to Google from Speak! to be more useful.

Object

Mobile object recognition using a low-cost app is still in its infancy. Once selected, the Object mode in Speak! stays on continuously. As a result, when the camera is moved from scene to scene, or object to object, the app speaks the various items it interprets. Envision AI, on the other hand, takes a picture of what the camera is pointing to when the Describe Scene button is tapped. After processing for a second or two, the app describes the scene. Overall, some of the descriptions from Speak! seemed more accurate, but both apps provided results that seemed to be in an “experimental” state. Speak! identified a flowerpot correctly that Envision AI described as a bench. Speak! identified the cab of a truck as a vehicle, whereas Envision AI described it as a “man sitting on a bench.” In all fairness, I recommend approaching the object recognition features in existing AI apps with great optimism—the potential far outweighs the issues in these early experiments.

As an aside, in each of the scenes tested for object recognition, I obtained more meaningful results using the TapTapSee app, which still relies on a network of humans to interpret scenes visually.

Color

Speak! offers a color identifier that toggles between two modes: Basic on or Basic off. With Basic on, the color responses tend to be general, like "green," "brown," "black," etc. With it turned off, you will hear more precise descriptions like, “olive green,” “saddle brown,” “dark grey,” etc. Determining the accuracy was difficult because at any given time the camera frame may have multiple colors in it. When the camera frame was filled with tree leaves, “green” was reported. A black iPad cover was reported to be “dark grey,” and a white t-shirt was reported as “silver.” Envision AI does not offer a color identifier.

Google

The last button on the bottom of the Speak! home screen is Google. When first opened, you'll be prompted to download the Google Lens app. Once installed, tapping this button prompts a Google response to the items in the picture. A picture of a small ladder received a response of several bench seats with a price comparison. A picture of my computer was correctly identified as a MacBook Pro and I was offered several similar images. Google Lens uses Google’s AI for object identification, and apparently to offer additional information about the objects recognized in a scene. If you don’t like the responses you get when you tap the Object menu in Speak!, you have the option to ask Google to take a crack at it!

Recognizing Text: A Comparison Between Speak! and Envision AI

Text recognition—the Read Text button and the Text menu item found in the Scan button—may be two of the most widely used features on Speak! app. Speak! automatically recognizes a wide variety of languages, including: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, Turkish, Swedish, Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, and Vietnamese. Unlike Envision AI, Speak! did not initiate a flash from the camera in dim lighting, so text recognition comparisons were done using three identical light conditions: dim, a portable LED task light, and daylight.

Using Read Text, in Speak! and Document in Envision AI, the overall results were worst in dim light, marginally better with the LED light, and best in daylight. I used a magazine-style print booklet with a newsprint-sized, serif font. In both the dim light and LED light trials, after processing I was able to make out the general highlights of the article, but many of the details were unclear—letters were left off some words, some words were completely skipped, and the like. After making several attempts, each with the same results, I scanned the page with KNFB Reader for the sake of comparison. Under all lighting conditions, KNFB Reader provided much more accurate results. It should be noted, however, that the KNFB Reader app is not a free app, although the Android version costs less than an annual subscription to Envision.

If your goal is quick identification or skimming text, the document reading modes in both Speak! and Envision are about equal. Unless the lighting conditions and printed fonts are ideal, however, neither app has an accuracy level that would be high enough for a student or professional to rely on.

The Speak! app offers several great features for the user with low vision, including the ability to magnify and change the contrast and colors of text by selecting the Show Text button once the app begins reading the text out loud. When Show Text is activated, two sliders appear directly below the text window. The top slider enlarges and wraps the text within the window. By default, text appears in high contrast white-on-black, however, by moving the bottom slider from left to right, you can change the view to black text on yellow, blue, green, or red backgrounds. By default, converted text is copied automatically to the clipboard so it can be pasted into a document or email, as needed.

In Speak!, when using the Text menu item in the Scan button instead of using the Read Text button, the spoken results seemed more accurate. Both Envision AI and Speak! permit you to select a text-to-speech engine built into the phone, for text conversion if the phone is offline. On my phone, both apps were set to use Google TTS (text to speech) and it's unclear if this difference in performance is just subjective, or, in fact, the result of a different TTS option used in the Scan >Text menu item.

Overall, the Speak! app is intuitive to open and begin using. An email to the developer regarding a tutorial was responded to promptly, and in detail. He explained, “…users don't read those, the app strives to be intuitive. The only explanations I have are on the Google Play page.” Like many other users, I often dive into an app and begin using it before referring to any documentation, and Speak! is certainly one that can immediately be used productively without documentation. But I often do go to the Help or Tutorial documentation for specific items or clarification, and for new users this might be a great addition.

The Bottom Line

Speak! is a welcome addition to the Android toolbox of text and object recognition apps. While the text recognition did best with optimal lighting, its accuracy level was equal to that of the Envision AI app, and both are best suited to quickly identifying and skimming a document. The higher-level accuracy a student or professional may need will require a stand-alone OCR app such as KNFB Reader. Speak! will benefit from some type of user guidance in the Read Text mode, so you can tell if the target document is completely framed before taking the picture. Barcode reading and color identification features were both quick and accurate. Neither app provided reliably accurate results with object recognition. You will get better results for object recognition with another app, like TapTapSee, which is also free. You can Download Speak! and download Envision AI from the Google Play store. Users of Speak! will find a menu item, Contact Developer, in the Settings menu to forward suggestions or ask for guidance.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Deborah Kendrick

The nature of dating and encountering potential relationship partners has changed dramatically over the last few decades and, like everything else, technology has had much to do with the change.

Fifteen years ago, an old friend of mine radiated contentment after taking the online dating plunge. He met the love of his life almost immediately and they'd gotten married. He told me that in his profile he had posted a picture of himself in Central Park with his guide dog, and that the woman who would become his wife had fallen in love with that picture. It was the kind of story that could warm the chilliest of hearts and plenty of folks were eager to hear it. Two things stood out from his experience: he had found an accessible online dating site and he had decided to share the news of his blindness loud and clear in his original profile. Since that time, the online dating arena has expanded exponentially. These days, people of all ages use the Internet to develop casual friendships or enduring relationships. For those with visual impairments, the accessibility of dating sites plays a large part in their decision to get in the game.

Once again, with that continuing knack for taking the pulse of the blind and low vision community, National Braille Press has responded to this growing need with a book. Dating in the Digital Age: An Accessible Journey for Finding Love Online, by Kim Loftis, is a good place if you've been thinking of testing the waters of online dating.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

While the first few chapters of this book present an overview of the online dating scene and discuss some basic relevant issues, this is not a long-winded, preaching tome. The author does spend some time, to her credit, touching on the question of disability disclosure, along with some general guidelines for being safe, but she dispenses with these topics quickly enough in order to get to the heart of the matter. She does not weigh in on whether it is smarter to mention a visual impairment in your profile or not, but simply presents the merits of either choice. (My aforementioned friend might be in the minority on this point. In my experience most people with visual impairments tend to wait until there is at least a conversation evolving with another person before throwing that topic into the mix.) Kim Loftis is a clear writer who presents facts in a concise and logical manner. The reader who wants to cut to the chase will be happy that in very short order the cautions and preliminaries are complete and the examination of sites begins.

Selective Ground

Since its inception a quarter century ago, online dating has become big business. There are websites and smart phone apps for the relationship seeker, the one-night stand aficionado, the millennial, and the retiree. In order to deliver some useful accessibility information, the author has selected three services for coverage in this book: match.com, Plenty of Fish, and eHarmony. Each offers a full-blown website as well as a mobile app.

Dedicating a chapter to each dating site, the author takes us on a detailed tour, providing information on signing up, reviewing potential people to meet, and the methods each site uses for reaching out or responding to other people.

Each link, button, combo box, or other element under discussion is accompanied by accessibility information. When Loftis has difficulty accessing the information offered in a particular area of a site, she explains exactly which steps she took to try to resolve the problem. Sometimes it's as simple as closing the page and approaching it again. Sometimes it's using a particular screen reader command. Sometimes she is unable to find any accessible solution. You will learn when the app is more accessible than the website and when the website will provide a more user-friendly experience. As she moves from one area to another of each site, she comments on features that might be specific to each particular dating service. She also tells the reader when a feature was simply not available via screen reader and whether or not someone with a visual impairment can engage in the process of signing up and conversing with potential matches.

One spoiler that seems essential here is that she does, in fact, report that all three selected services can be navigated to some degree without sight, with varying caveats and/or levels of difficulty.

To Buy or Not To Buy

It's always more pleasant to have a guide when you're approaching a new technological task, and that is the role Loftis assumes. She leads you through the registration and navigation process for each service, and prepares the reader for what lies ahead, pointing out the highlights and pitfalls. I wish she had reached out to the companies to address such matters as unlabeled buttons, but she has pointed them out, so that motivated readers can pick up from there and contact services themselves. More guidance with regard to posting photos would have been useful. That said, this is the only book of its kind and well worth the price for anyone ready to give online dating a try. Read the book straight through before jumping in with your own laptop or phone, and then use it as a convenient reference as you navigate any or all of these sites for yourself. This book won’t get you a date, but it will make the exploration process a simpler and more satisfying one.

Dating in the Digital Age: An Accessible Journey for Finding Love Online, by Kim Loftis, National Braille Press, Boston, is available in hardcopy braille or in electronic Daisy, eBraille, or Microsoft Word formats. Hard copy or downloaded versions are $18, or add $2.50 to have it sent to you on a USB drive. Order through the National Braille Press website or call 800-548-7323, Ext. 520.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Microsoft Offers Free Webinar: Game Your Way With Xbox

In The Accessibility Learning Webinar Series, Microsoft aims to share the latest technology and accessibility features across Microsoft products and help answer common accessibility questions.

The next webinar is on Xbox Accessibility on August 21st, 2019, from noon to 1 pm, Pacific Time (8:00 PM GMT), and is available to everyone including international audiences. The Xbox team will share the latest in accessible gaming and perform demos on Xbox Adaptive Controller, Co-pilot and more. Register for Game Your Way With Xbox .

You can review the schedule and register for your favorite topic by visiting the Accessibility Webinars Sway. Microsoft will continue to update the Sway with more topics every quarter. Once Microsoft receives your registration, the company will send you an email with a link to join the webinar.

Mike May Joins Access Explorer Team as Chief Evangelist

The Access Explorer team (an incorporated company owned by American Printing House for the Blind), is excited to welcome Mike May, a pioneer in accessible navigation.

"Mike has more than 25 years of experience in accessible indoor wayfinding and literally originated this effort in the US. There is nobody with more experience or passion for accessible indoor navigation than Mike," says Access Explorer CEO Jose Gaztambide. "He's an incredible leader and human being, and everybody at Access Explorer and the indoor navigation industry will benefit from his commitment and presence."

Mike will help the Access Explorer company develop partnerships, identify resources to help expand its mission, and ensure Access Explorer's work meets the highest standard of accessibility.

"I've been learning how to navigate since I was blinded from an explosion at age 3, and have worked on accessible navigation as a profession since the mid-90s," explains May. "The timing for indoor navigation to be adopted by the public is now. it's the newest frontier. I believe the Access Explorer company is poised to make sure accessibility is part of that breakthrough, and I look forward to being part of this important mission."

The Nearby Explorer app was created by the non-profit, American Printing House for the Blind (APH). As the popularity of Nearby Explorer grew, APH saw the need to take the app and concept to the next level. In March of this year, after a period of studying the business need and feasibility, and developing approaches to solving the obstacles to indoor navigation, APH formed the new for-profit corporation: Access Explorer, Inc.

Neuroplasticity and Development Lab at Johns Hopkins University seeking study participants

The Neuroplasticity and Development Lab at Johns Hopkins University is seeking participants for an MRI research study on cognition and brain plasticity. The goal of this research is to investigate how the brain adapts to the absence of vision. For this particular study, we are seeking research participants who were born with normal vision and lost their sight during adulthood. Participating in this study involves traveling to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and doing an MRI scan. The scan session lasts one to three hours. During the scans, participants listen to stories and sounds, and then answer questions about what they hear. Participants are compensated $30 per hour for their time with a pre-paid bank card after the scan session. All travel and lodging costs to and from Baltimore are covered by the laboratory. To qualify for the study you must be a healthy blind adult between 18 and 65 years-of-age who experienced permanent vision loss at the age of 18 or older. Before taking part in the study, participants are asked to complete a 30-minute pre-screening interview over the phone to see whether they qualify. Those who complete the pre-screening interview receive a $15 Amazon gift card. To learn more about participating, please contact the lab either by calling 410-870-9895 or sending an e-mail.

Viscardi Center to launch National Center for Disability Entrepreneurship

This fall, The Viscardi Center, a not-for-profit that provides a lifespan of programs and services that educate, employ and empower children and adults with disabilities, will launch the National Center for Disability Entrepreneurship (NCDE) as a strategic pathway to help combat the many barriers people with disabilities face in the traditional employment model. The program is broken into separate phases and the center describes them as “…90-minute weekly sessions over a 14-to-20 week period. Each session is followed by a Q&A, corresponding assignments with deadlines, tutoring as needed and access to the NCDE’s expert Mentor Team and E-Advisory Council within program guidelines.”

Announcing the Release of Version 3.7 of Aira's iPhone GPS Apps

Aira announced an update to its recently acquired GPS mobile apps. These apps are as follows:

• Seeing Eye GPS (subscription in North America),
• RNIB Navigator (subscription in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany),
• Guide Dogs NSW/ACT (subscription in Australia),
• Seeing Eye GPS XT (no subscription)

Warning: Before you install the update, share your user points of interest with your email; otherwise, they will be deleted from the app. You can then click on the attachment of the email on your phone to import them into the new version.

This version of the apps brings the following changes and updates:

1. Added a Call Aira Agent button on the location and active route screens. The Aira app can connect you with a trained professional agent to provide instant access to visual information.
2. Added POI category: Aira Access Points. You can search nearby POIs that have Aira's free service Access Points.
3. Aira Access Point automatic detection and notification. Now when you approach one of Aira's free Access Points, you will receive a notification. If you already have the Aira app installed on your phone and activate that notification, it will automatically load so that you can call an Aira agent. If you do not have the Aira app installed, you will be redirected to the App Store to download the Aira app. After creating a guest account, you will enjoy free assistance from the Aira agents at locations with Aira Access Points. If you find that you do not want these notifications, you can turn this off in General Settings under the heading Notifications.
4. Fixed issues with User POI keyboard and headset button controls.
5. Updated Google Maps SDK

The following countries and regions are available as of 2019: USA, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Canada, UK, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Argentina and Israel.

If you would like to learn more about Aira’s acquisition of the Sendero GPS apps, see this page. To learn about the Sendero GPS apps, visit the Sendero website