Guest interview with Assistive Technology Coordinator at VisAbility, Yuemei Lim

Transcript

18 January 2015

Roberta: Media Access Australia is joined today by Assistive Technology Coordinator at VisAbility, Yuemei Lim, following her recent presentation at the SPEVI 2015 Conference on accessing smart devices with vision impairment the smart way. Welcome, Yuemei.

Yuemei: Thank you, Roberta.

Roberta: Now, what are the access issues associated with smart devices and vision impairment?

Yuemei: Well, big question for such a short time. Honestly, smart devices have come a long way since when it was back then but obviously still a lot of access issues going along and I think, when I thought about it, the main two that I come to think about is, first, the attitude of users. You know, sometimes if you're scared of a device, however accessible it is, it won't be accessible because if you're too scared to use it you won't be able to use it. So something that I always tell people is though there are technical issues that may happen the device probably won't explode on you. Also another thing is also lack of awareness of, like, app developers or software engineers and things like that and from there that's where it leads because you don't know what you don't know. So when you're developing something you develop it and if you don't know that your users need to be able to use it with a screen reader or something then it's not their fault that it doesn't work because they didn't know that needed to be done that way. So those are the main two things when I think about all the access issues that happen. From those things that's where it leads to, "My voice over doesn't work with this app." Maybe the developer doesn't know about it, just to sum it up.

Roberta: Do they differ from device to device and how?

Yuemei: They definitely differ. Yes, so I think in the space that we are in at the moment the main two players at the moment would be the Apple and Android devices. With Apple accessibility isn't too different. iPad and iPhone, the gestures are pretty much the same in terms of accessibility. With Android, having so many different manufacturers can put the Android operating system on there's going to be a lot of differences, not only between manufacturers but even with manufacturers with different models. You could find one Android device that's highly accessible and then you can't say Android is accessible just based on that because you could go down and get another device that's Android made by a different company and it's totally different. So they definitely differ from device to device. I always suggest that people that want to get a device, if they can go and try it first, just play with it and try everything out and don't be afraid.

Roberta: What are some of the strategies or tactics for getting around those access issues?

Yuemei: Like I said before, a lot of the things that happen is mainly because of a lack of awareness. Speaking to a lot of developers and software engineers out there, they're all quite willing to listen to all these things and it is quite a new world or a little secret spot. Just before I got involved in the world of vision impairment I had no clue, so it's really good in the terms now that with apps you can always email the developer. You can always report bugs. That's how awareness gets out. If you don't say anything no one is going to ever know and those access issues will always be there. As technology grows so quickly there's always going to be updates. There's going to be new versions of hardware. So if something doesn't work, I'm not the type that likes to complain about anything but it's good to just put the word out there and go, "Oh, with this new operating system I was trying to use my screen reader or my voice over and this doesn't work." Most developers are really keen to learn about it and go, "Oh, okay, let's try it out."

Roberta: Looking to the future, do you expect that these access issues will be resolved?

Yuemei: I definitely hope so. I think it will. Like I said, the accessibility of smart devices today is a lot better than it used to be, so it can only go forward. With new functionality and new things there's always going to be the trials and testing periods of things. There will always be a little bit of accessibility issues out there but, as I said, as the awareness builds up with developers and things like that it's always going to get better.

Roberta: It is getting better, isn't it?

Yuemei: Yes, it is. Just seeing someone that's totally blind use a fully touch screen with no buttons to send messages faster than I do is just speaking volumes.

Roberta: Well, thank you, Yuemei, for all of that today. I'm really pleased to have you on the program and that you brought that information to us from SPEVI.

Yuemei: Thanks for having me.

Roberta: I've been speaking with Yuemei Lim who is Assistive Technology Coordinator at VisAbility and who is a guest on Media Access Australia today. For more information you can go to Media Access Australia's website, www.mediaaccess.org.au. Media Access Australia is a supporter of this program.

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