Hey, Intuit! What you got against “high contrast”

Well, we were moving right along with my 2007 taxes, ready to download the state form, and ran into a TurboTax gotcha.

I set my PCs in High Contrast theme with a dark background, cuts down the brightness for when I can see the screen. “High contrast” is one of the standard changes made by the very helpful Windows Accessibility Wizard and is probably used by 10000s of low vision ppeople, as well as many sighted looking for a more restful background. Apparently, TurboTax download for state forms was not tested in this configuration as a nasty error message came up at the start of the transition to state form mode, usually a piece of cake compared to the federal form.

The recommended change to a “classic” or non-contrast theme did not solve the problem, namely a failure of a Continue button to appear. Nor is the intuit recommendation, to “well, just make a slight change in your system” trivial, as it’s easy to screw up Display properties and also can be very hard to change back to High Contrast staring into a painfully bright screen. Sorry, intuit, that’s not fair And it didn’t work, anyway. Now, there is a free state CD on its way to me, responding to an 800 number, but not likely to get here before April 15. We did finish my taxes by moving to another household computer, and would have appreciated knowing of this pitfall to install there first. Thanks, again, intuit, for the advanced warning.

So, this is a pretty egregious screw-up by a major vendor, probably due to some combination of poor specification, lax qA, unfamiliarity with accessibility settings, and not many visually impaired testers in the intuit world.

Of course, I wasn’t trying to do my taxes alone, but rather to avail myself of some in-house teenagers with fast fingers to enter the data I compiled and explained to them. Indeed, I use tax preparation as a way to impart some financial lessons, explaining terminology, re-inforcing “income vs. expenses”, and, unfortunately, occasionally demonstrating confusion from lapses in record-keeping. This extra glitch didn’t help our family morale at all, nearing 90% done, and ready to move on to more fun activities.

I’d be interested in hearing from other visually impaired people:

• Anybody else run into this intuit QA mess?
• Anybody have any recommendations for an accessible tax program for next year?
• Are there other software packages that have a bias against “high contrast” like this one, obscuring a single crucial button or operation?
• Oh, wow, wouldn’t a flat tax be nice?

Reference: google search ‘turbotax “high contrast” state form”

TurboTax Buttons Don’t Show in Firefox Browser - TurboTax Customer care …
TurboTax - Income Taxes, Tax Preparation and Tax s

Turbotax at intuit.com

Audio Replay of July 2007 Postings

Here is an audio version of the first month of “As Your World Changes”, july 2007, to serve several purposes.. First, my blog readers can download and listen to the blog entries wherever they like, an alternative to reading. Second, the blog postings are spoken in a variety of voices as the basis for a future posting on how our brains are “wired for speech”. Third, I (the partially sighted blog author) use audio for improving my writing, not only for tone and style but also for editing mistakes. There is no particular significance to the choice of gender or age sounds of voices. Feedback on this writing and listening practice would be appreciated.

Synthetic voice reading of posts, listen in mp3: Welcome, TextAloud reading application, Bookshare.org,Mouse Hacks, 5 Facets of Living with Vision Loss, and Lucky Vision Losers.

Voices are: Neospace Kate and Paul; ATT Natural Voices Mike, Crystal, Claire, Julia; Cepstral Diane, David, and Emily.

Again, the link for the mp3 replay is

http://www.apodder.org/blog/AYWC-7-07.mp3

Aren’t we Vision Losers lucky?

Aren’t we lucky? Just when our vision starts to deteriorate on us, there comes a whole new medium of information, entertainment, and inspiration opening up to fill our ears, and our years. This new medium is called "podcasting" but you will not need an ipod, not even ear buds, just your PC, speakers, and audio player, which probably come with the package. Add one piece of additional free software, called a podcatcher, and you’ve entered a new world. One theme in this blog is the full utilization of the podcasting medium for the benefit of Vision Losers of a certain age.

Who are this so-called ‘we’, the lucky ones, the generalization of the singular self-styled Vision Loser? who is this blog written for?

Well, there are literally millions of over-50 people with variations of macular degeneration and other forms of retinopathy who retain partial sight, enough to operate most software packages, on a decent vision day, albeit somewhat more clumsy than the multi-tasking, keyboard-glued, Internet-addicted younger generations. Many of us have been using computers for work, for communication, and for gaming for years, while some of us are newbies to the Internet and the PC world. Our ranks are growing rapidly with the baby boomer generation. Plus, others who care about the well-being of those losing vision.

The lucky ones are those who can take full advantage of a low-cost, vibrant, versatile, varied, stimulating medium especially helpful for those in vision loss transition. That’s our main message: use the podcasting medium to supplant print-based activities and to introduce yourself to the technology, people, and philosophy of the parallel world of the partially sighted and fully blind.

The quality of life we address in this blog are the "partially sighted" who have lost some significant properties of vision: contrast, color, print discrimination, or steady lines of objects. More challenging are normal abilities to read, drive, converse with facial and body awareness, Gone are many energy-saving and safety-providing actions formerly taken for granted. Being partially sighted is far different from being completely blind because the world is continually playing tricks on you, luring you to "see” but denying you all the details in your partial sight, you live with the shape shifter and Trickster archetypes.

Meanwhile, strangers, colleagues and friends and family cannot recognize your problems because, quote, you "do not look blind" — whatever that means. You are perfectly capable of absorbing and giving information through digital media, but at a loss to sort the mail and read important matters without adaptive technology. You need some help, but maybe not the full-blown, costly equipment avai able to the fully blind.

One way to appreciate this quality of life — both the losses and retained skills — is listening to podcasts by people dealing with their losses in similar situations. Aren’t we lucky that we can find and follow the inspiration of such people, without stretching our personal limits of energy and mobility? This blog will take you through a tangle of podcasts to place ourselves in a virtual crowd of like-abled people.

With our partial sight, we can avail ourselves of many PC packages with only a modest additional expense and some self-training.We clearly have one foot in the blind camp where many software vendors offer custom products, but at an expense that is often borne by employers, rehab offices, and educational systems. Being of a more advanced aged, perhaps out of the work force, some of us struggle with many trade-offs of finance, training, and frustration less faced by those with no options, like the blind. But it turns out there is a rich suite of relatively low cost packages on the market which this blog seeks to motivate and explain individually and together.

The trick is to think as a "system integrator” who identifies tasks, and processes, and quality factors then finds components that work together to provide a high enough level of productivity and quality of getting our work and our fun under control. These include text-to-speech readers of web, mail, and other documents; partial screen readers: that guide us around software tools on our screen; and magnifiers that zoom in on smudges of print we want to see but not hear.

Aren’t we lucky, that vendors have found a large enough market of people like us, or with similar needs, to produce tools we can integrate into our environments? Aren’t we lucky that a few years ago breakthroughs in speech synthesis have given us voices that resonate in personality while they clearly read for us? Aren’t we lucky that podcasting came along to give us access to many product reviews, demonstrations, and testimonials?

This blog describes a combination of free and low-cost products that can launch a Vision Loser into a more effective, still familiar, way of using our PCs. And one of these software products is a podcatcher customized for partially sighted people.

But, isn’t it strange, that we Vision Losers might have the advantage of early adoption of speech interactions with our software while the fully sighted remain with their eyeballs glued to their screens? In technology transfer terms, we can be as geeky as we like as “early adopters” while many software products are simple enough to master for those without a "geek streak”. This blog discusses many of these download-install-try and adopt or discard packages. We demonstrate that some added functionality here and a better interface there and, with practice, we can remain cost effectively fully functioning in the networked world.

What else does podcasting have to offer vision losers? While we are using podcasts to learn about technology to exploit our partial sight, we hear the inspiring words of Vision Losers like us, across a spectrum of losses. More than that, we can see how podcasts can fill the information voids caused by difficulty reading print magazines and newspapers. We will find a generation of communicators, both younger and older, using podcasts to develop a style and outlets for their cultural, humor, and intellectual interests. The early podcasters are entrepreneurial, energetic, and often fresh figures to replace TV fixtures and columnists we may have been using for years to structure our own views of the world.

Aren’t we lucky so many independent and creative individuals offer us a new way to explore and absorb a very wide world beyond our screens and speakers? We will find that podcasting offers a way to design your own stream of content geared toward your own information and entertainment needs and time available. And it is amazing how much more you can get done listening to podcasts than watching a tube or unfolding and refolding a newspaper?

Aren’t we lucky, that we have a medium so well matched to our needs, so flexible, and so cheap?

We began this blog by describing a PC environment that may help many Vision Losers with little expense or effort, namely a few synthetic voices, an application, that reads from the clipboard, and the minimal functionality of magnifiers supplied by the Microsoft XP (and other) Windows environments with an add-on mouse. We have also been using podcasts as references in earlier articles, just requiring a PC invoked with the click of a link to a .mp3 player. We’ll soon move on to harder trade-offs with other screen readers, editors, and podcatchers that bring out a tendency to collect podcasts.

No, it is not great to be a Vision Loser; in fact, it’s a very hard life with more of the same and worse for life’s remaining decades. But, really, the confluence of assistive technology, opening of independent media through podcasting and blogs, and the challenge to learn and use these as rapidly as possible during vision descent leads to the significant conclusion: Contemporary Vision Losers have timed their transition well to take advantage of technology never before available, not robbing the bank account, and poised to become one more node in a vast network of audio driven information and human connection.

As we write this blog we draw from a library of podcasts collected on vision-related topics and by and for blind and partially sighted individuals. Check this out in the blogroll and
@Podder Eyesight Podcast Library

Listen to an audio version of this posting

Mouse Hacks, Magnifiers, and Being Your Own System Integrator

In this post, we look for ways to reduce the costs of our computing environment as we deal with vision loss. Magnifiers are helpful, sometimes essential, and, we show, can be very low-cost with additional benefits.

Assistive Technology (abbreviated AT) software comes in several cost categories: built-in, $0, $50, $500, and $1000. The “big AT” vendors sell to individuals, of course, but the main market is the IT and A.D.A. support organizations of government agencies and employers, i.e. the “budgets”. I claim that an independent Vision Loser can save by becoming a System Integrator of sorts avoiding not only costs of acquiring “Big AT”, but also reducing complexity of installation, maintenance, and training.

Here’s a little case study in System Integration, First, some caveats: I am neither a trained rehab/AT specialist nor an experienced System Integrator. But I did go to conference with these types and have assembled a library of podcasts and web articles with excellent advice.

What we are calling a “System Integrator” is someone who looks at how components work individually and composes a new “system” where the components work together to achieve a goal. With the uncertainty of progressive vision loss, a worthy goal is frequently a kind of testbed to experiment with techniques that compensate for vision deficiencies and offer a measure of comfortable use. Experimental results may lead to identification of a suitable product or provide experience for evaluating more costly alternatives.

Here’s our goal: low-cost magnification capabilities for a Windows XP computing system. The underlying problem is for this Vision Loser to have available screen magnification when needed to complement self-voicing and screen reading software (a future post). I really want to know both what is (1) necessary and (2) sufficient to meet my vision needs, keeping mind that needs will change as vision changes. Change is as much daily, even hourly, variation as slower deterioration.

Well, how about that! Microsoft accessibility software includes a simple stationary magnifier with several levels of magnification and inversion of screen colors. Stationary means it doesn’t follow the mouse and it can be docked at one of the borders so it doesn’t move around. Indeed, I found I liked a stationary magnifier set to level 2, inverted, and docked at the top. The down-side is vertigo from the magnifier tracking the mouse. So, Only time and trial would show its sufficiency.

Enter the “{mouse”. and yes, we were talking about magnifiers, not pointers, or vermin! On a trip to a computer store, I decided to pick up a new wrist rest and a more comfortable mouse. By sheer luck, my niece shopper assistant pointed out a mouse with a magnifier. At home, I discovered that this little guy really is useful. It provides a “tracking” magnifier to complement the stationary Windows lens, again within levels of magnification and resize of the tracking box. Now, with a flick of an extra side button on the mouse, up came a magnifier aimed at the text I want to read. The product model is called a Microsoft Laser Mouse 5000, but these names and model numbers may have changed.

But, wait, what about the extra button capabilities that come with the mouse. Only the right side button, an extra sliver, is being used, to pop up the tracking magnifier. Wow, I have these other tools that read to me when I copy text to the clipboard (see previous post). I wonder if I can link these two. Indeed, the left side mouse button can be assigned to Select All and the Wheel button to Copy. Now with two clicks, I can hear a window of text. Cool! This save fumbling around the keyboard for Control-A then Control-C or a couple of trips down a context menu.

This is what computing folk call a “hack”, a clever way to get a job done, maybe not obvious or elegant but definitely effective. Indeed” OReilly Press has raised “hack” to a publishing genre, with piles of books that collect, explain, and propagate hacks for Amazon, Google, podcasting, even mental productivity.

There are always trade-offs in any system design. The first is that a solution only works if you remember to use it! That use must become part of your reflex repertoire But then you’re in trouble on a different computing system at a friend’s office or on a consulting gig. I forgot my mouse on a recent trip and walked over to a Staples to get a replacement, a smaller notebook mouse with a single side button magnifier. It worked right out of the box, but getting the thing released from its hard plastic covering required 2 hotel clerks and some dangerous instruments. Then, I really noticed the loss of select-copy functionality as I struggled under fluorescent lights and a nasty wireless security system. Further, to make my hack work, the Windows security system had to permit copy to clipboard, which many IT departments like to over-ride.

What if I want or need more magnification? Software like ZoomText is widely used (I hear from podcasts) and is designed especially for partially sighted people. A trial use early in my vision loss showed how many ways graphics could be adjusted to achieve magnification and contrast effects, with the primary benefit crisper text at higher levels of magnification Indeed, vision is so complicated - is it color, contrast, glare, font, or other factors that are most crippling to a particular Vision Loser? And, my vision changes so much, with lighting conditions, time of day, cumulative exposure, and who knows what other factors. In any case, the $500+ price tag was out of my budget at the time of trial.

What is the System Integration lesson? In “computational thinking” terms, we look for abstract interfaces of components, primarily their inputs and outputs. We don’t worry about the buttons or the user interface or menus but focus on the generic capability. In this example, the system clipboard is a (hidden) input to TextAloud (or similar tool that monitors the clipboard) and our MS Laser Mouse has a (hidden) output to copy selected text to the clipboard. Well, duh, the clipboard pervades Windows applications, but now we have endowed it with text-to-speech reading capabilities. We’ve wrapped a different way of thinking about the united capabilities of two separate components - a text reader application and a mouse.

When you put yourself in System Integrator mode, you ask: what’s my inventory of components? what are their abstract interfaces? how can I connect these applications together? How much complexity is added to my system by now having inter-linked components, e.g. when one is upgraded? What forms of training are now required, including getting used to, learning the foibles of, and gaining reflex control over the new capability? How do my solutions compare with each other and what are the trade-offs? Is there a show-stopper against or in favor of a particular solution?

One of the most serious lessons of the Software Engineering field, where I formerly taught, is the importance of getting the requirements right early on. That usually is not possible in our Vision Loser world, but rather we need to set up an experimental testbed where we can try out different ways of compensating for vision loss. Necessary and sufficient are always concerns, e.g. an expensive solution may be sufficient but not necessary while a low-cost solution may be necessary for some uses but insufficient for others.

Readers of this posting might be wondering: why not ask an expert? Well, I don’t have one handy, have never had computer rehab support from an employer or agency, and, frankly, have already had some unsatisfactory experiences with consumer low vision businesses. But really the experts are out there, telling me much good advice on podcasts and in accessibility publications. Thanks to them.

helpful podcasts and articles:

Access World comparison of magnification products
http://www.afb.org Search (upper corner) for “Zoomtext, MAGIC, magnifiers”

Barrier-Free IT Tips and Tricks podcast on the Windows Accessibility Wizard
http://eaSsi.cc/podcasts/bfit/bfit31506/bfit31506.mp3

Literacy Questions for Magnification, Karen McCall from Carlin Communications
(link to be found)

OReilly “Hacks” Series http://www.hackszine.com

Microsoft Laser Mouse search for “Microsoft Laser Mouse” and “on screen magnifiers”