I'm writing this post solely with my left hand this morning thanks to a nasty accident with a glass on Saturday afternoon that required a trip to the ER and 10 stitches. With luck, I should be healed up in 10-14 days, but in the meantime, I thought it might be interesting to explore some accessibility-related technology products that are helping to make lives easier.
- For those operating with one-hand, there are dozens of models like this guy, which let you use one hand in place to reach all the keys you need.
- Braille keyboards for the vision-impaired
- Eye-tracking input devices that will act as both keyboard (using an on-screen keyboard) and mouse (by pointing and clicking the cursor where the use looks). This one claims to ignore many of the most prevalent problems with these devices (such as pupil color, ethnic background and contact lenses).
- Devices designed to assist with repetitive strain injuries (RSI) like these ergo keyboards
- A mouth-operated joystck device
- Not a device per se, but the Ragged Edge appears to be great resource for and about modern disabilities (including up-to-date news)
BTW - Based on my short research in this field, I'd venture to guess that there is signigicant SEO play available in this sector, as the competition is generally underwhelming (and link requests might be very easy to come by for the right person/product).
I always turn to Kim Krause (and her husband Eric) for advice in the accessibility arena. They might have more to contribute on this subject.
p.s. Do note that email responses will be slow and posting light until I regain use of both hands.
Sorry to hear about your hand Rand! (no poetry pun intended, heh.)
My favorite site for accessibility is: Matt Bailey's blog - Web Site Accessibility (https://www.accessibilityblog.com/)
He's the one who got me so fascinated with how to make the web work for everyone.
There is already quite a niche market for 'special needs' hardware/software Rand, with some decent sized players (though my familiarity is more wiht the UK market).
Some fo the sites may not be great, and yes, it probably wouldn't be hard to beat some of them. But there are some well known/trusted brands, that can also be heavily linked.
It's the kind of area where getting some gov links would be a lot easier than usual, there are always some kind of gov support sites for general special needs equipment that can, and will link out to suppliers in cases.
It's usually relatively high value kit as well, look at the prices for screen readers like HAL or JAWS for example.
Apps like Dragon don't work so well on laptops, or in noisier environments, and there are some voices that it just struggles with. A bit like MS Tablet handwritting recognition. It can handle some peoples scrawl fine, but others, even though it my be neater, it just can't translate. Someone I previously worked with tried it in classroom environments, and it was just no good at all. If you can sit in a quiet office, with some half decent hardware (mic, soundcard etc...) then there's a lot more chance of it being useful.
If I'd seen this post when you posted it, I'd suggest trying the demo first, bit late for that I guess though ;)
I started getting interested in computers when I worked as a home health aid for a guy who has muscular dystrophy. He could only move his fingers, after a few months of trial and error I had built him a computer that uses voice recognition with finger clips to run all the stuff in his room. I then said to myself, damn computers are pretty freakin' cool and here I am, addicted to this stuff. :)
I'm a spammer and Matt Cutts should look at besttenantloansuk.co.uk when he gets a chance...
(edited by Rand)
I think it'squite impressive that you're doing these posts one handed. Kind of reminds me of Rocky 2 when Mickey teaches Rock to fight southpaw.
Have you found yourself thinking more creatively with the right side of your brain since the accident?
By the way, your accident is the reason my wife talked me out of taking boxing lessons (atleast until I look into this a bit more).
Her reasoning is that if I go and break my knuckles on some guy's cheekbone, I'm screwed as a web publisher with not being able to type.
Any of you guys box?
How is it on your typing knuckes?
Has anyone tried IBM ViaVoice. Its way cheaper than Dragon. Since IBM makes it and they are on version 10, I figured it could be a good alternative for the price.
I'm very tempted to make an off-color one-handed typing comment.
Humor aside, I'm sorry to hear about your hand.
Dragon has really improved in quality over the years; my most recent experience with it was about 2 years ago when developing a medical automation system...we used Dragon as the speach engine and it worked pretty well. The time to teach the software used to be hours, but you can probably do it within an hour now.
I tried DNS a few years ago but it wasn't up to par at the time for me. I was able to type much faster than I could get the dang thing to write for me...Has it improved a lot since then Egol?
It works great for me but I know a couple people who complain about it. IMO it has to do with how the voice recognition works with your word pronunciation - and if you pronounce words the same way every time. When I bought it my friends told me that it would not work because I have a strong Appalachian (a.k.a. hillbilly) accent. They were wrong.
All I had to do was speak into it and then edit the few errors in the sample documents - after that it is almost flawless voice to text.
Rand, get yourself one of those voice to text systems. I have used a Dragon Naturally Speaking to get lectures converted in to text. Once you have it you will be dictating content as you drive, hike, work out, ride the bus, etc. This and other voice to text tools at nuance.com. Check their podcasts on transcription.
Also, broke my right hand badly mountain biking a few years ago and had a big cast that prevented using it for keyboard or mouse. I learned to mouse and type lefty. When the cast came off I contined to mouse lefty and it is a great productivity boost. I can now take notes with my right hand and run the computer with my left. Also it keeps other people off of my computer now because they don't like the mouse on the left side (-:
So, you learn to mouse lefty now and get started with voice to text. This will be a productivity boost for you long term.
EGOL - You mean this software, right? It's not a bad idea. I'd be fascinated to see how well it works. Thnx for the tip - at $199, it seems worthwhile even just for the next two weeks.
I bought this one because it includes a cheap recorder. Don't see it on the nuance site anymore.
Sorry to hear about your accident, Rand.
If you do try out Dragon Naturally Speaking, please let us know how you find it works for you. That does sound like a nice alternative approach to typing.