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WADE WINGLER: Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions, and we have answers. And now here’s your host, Brian Norton.
BRIAN NORTON: Hello and welcome to ATFAQ episode 26. I want to take a moment and welcome our panel today. First person, Belva Smith is here. She is our vision team lead.
BELVA SMITH: Hi everybody.
BRIAN NORTON: And also Mark Stewart. Stewart is on our mobility and cognition team. You want to say hey?
MARK STEWART: Hey everybody.
WADE WINGLER: Mark is phoning it in today.
BRIAN NORTON: He phoned in today. Thanks for joining us. And then we also have Wade Wingler in the room as well.
WADE WINGLER: Hello everybody.
BRIAN NORTON: My name is Brian Norton and I’m the host of ATFAQ. I’m glad you’re with us today.
Just some important information for our new listeners. The first thing is how the show works. This is a question and answer show castle we collect questions throughout the week and then we set around in this panel that we have collected here and we throw those out there and try to answer them as best we can. However we do rely on our listeners to contribute as much as they can. So if you are listening today and you hear questions and maybe there are some suggestions or answers that you guys have, please call in. Let us know. We do have a way to get in touch with us. We have a listener line at 317-721-7124. You can email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Again if you do have questions as well, not just the feedback but also we are looking for questions that we can field on the show, send those in as well.
We did get some feedback from this past week from Darren. We will go ahead and play his feedback. He called in our listener line so we will hit that.
SPEAKER: This is Darren from Indianapolis and I just have a comment for the frequently asked questions episode 24. You guys were discussing Zoom text and different things about ZoomText. The question was related about having something about free assistive technology but for screen enlargement. I just want you guys to be aware you were talking about the cost for ZoomText. Yes it can get pretty expensive, but one thing you guys didn’t mention which I’m not sure if you knew, they do offer clients, if the client is paying for the ZoomText on their own without any assistance, they can break that into three monthly payments, and they do that pretty frequently. There is no credit check or anything like that. They will break it up for you into three monthly payments to make it a little bit more affordable for the user. Thanks a lot. You guys are doing a great job.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s some great feedback. I think a lot of assistive technology manufacturers probably offer kind of a payment plan for folks. I’m glad to hear the ZoomText offers that. I do not know that myself. We met I think I might’ve heard it but forgot about it.
BRIAN NORTON: I think ZoomText ranges anywhere from $400-$600, maybe even more for the new one.
BELVA SMITH: $400-$999.
BRIAN NORTON: For ZoomText fusion, the new one. Honestly paying for the all at once could be pretty expensive for someone, but breaking it up into monthly payments would make it a lot more affordable and would be able to let you afford it over time. Thank you, Darren. I appreciate it. Again as he listened to the show, if you guys have questions or comments, take some time, give us a call and let us know.
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BRIAN NORTON: Our next question is also someone who called into our listener line. That listener line is 317-721-7124. We will listen to this question.
SPEAKER: This is Mary and I have a question for ATFAQ. I’m an assistant technology consultant in a school district in Kentucky, and we use all kinds of technology. A lot of it are things I’ve heard about on both of your programs at Easter Seals. Today what I need is something similar to speak selection and speak screen, only on an android device. I’m pretty familiar with Apple devices, but I never had an android device myself; however, many of my high school students are starting to have an android phone in their pocket, and for those students I need something that will work like that speak selection and speak screen on an Apple device. If you all can tell me anything about that, that would be great.
BRIAN NORTON: Essentially her question, she was asking and for apps on android that would mimic the iOS speak selection or speak screen functionality on an android device. I’ll be the first to admit I’m an Apple or iOS user. I have an iPhone, so I wasn’t as familiar with an answer for this question although I did a little bit of digging. About a year ago when they came out with the operating system called the jellybean, they had a new conversation of text to speech was that you could use to be able to produce some text to speech. I think even more recently they felt they did that and giving you some pretty high quality digital voices. But again, it’s not something I’m as familiar with but wanted to throw that out to the group.
WADE WINGLER: Me neither. I’m a self-described Apple fan boy so I struggle a little bit with android. I know there is some built-in screen reading and android. There is a thing that is sort of like speak selection that will do that out loud. There is also a thing with pocket for android where you can take an article or a webpage and drop it into pocket which is that news clipping service, and it will read some of that out loud. Then there is also a thing called sound Geico that lets you add links or to create sort of its own RSS feed and it will read some of that stuff out loud. I’m not sure those are exact 121 correlations, but those might at least be a good place to start.
MARK STEWART: There are two things, two Google apps. There is Google text to speech and there’s also Google talk back. Google text to speech has a little bit more of a specifically text to speech kind of set up. Google talk back is more in line with the full voiceover navigational kind of speech feedback sort of set up. Some phones are going to have those in them inherently. On the ones you will have to download the app. But those are both available.
BELVA SMITH: Mark, with that Google talk back, if I select the text or highlight it, does it just automatically read it to me?
MARK STEWART: Yeah, I believe so. As far as day-to-day use, it is more of the iPhone for me. I think it probably will just start reading. It will tell you whether you are over an iconic, whether that icon is checked were not, navigate all the way through.
BRIAN NORTON: That Google talk back is a screen reader for android devices. It is made to speak everything. I’m pretty sure everything that receives focus gets spoken back to the user much like your voice over software on your iPhone, talkback is designed to give that type of speech feedback to folks who are blind or visually impaired.
MARK STEWART: The Google text to speech it’s a little bit more into type of voice that is available, the quality of voice, those kinds of things more focused on specifically traditionally reading text back like an e-book. There is also an app called webpage reader. That’s actually serves as a stripped-down browser. You can download that and it is ready to read everything back that it pulls down as well. There is chrome reader for the chrome browser on android.
BRIAN NORTON: I will throw out there, if you’re looking for the Google text to speech, you can get to that by heading to your settings menu and looking for the language and input panel. Under there you can select text to speech output which will be located towards the bottom of the screen. Then there are some different settings you can choose for that particular tool.
MARK STEWART: I made a few points after looking at this person’s question. These are kind of expanded points that come off of the answer to the question that the reader brought up. I think that she is well aware of these points , and everybody would be. One, I think when we are talking about either text to speech or talkback, like for example if you go into accessibility settings and talkback, it actually mentions that this is for someone who traditionally is blind or visually impaired. That is kind of the way that it seems like the folks at Apple and the folks at android still think of that topic, even though they are making that not within accessibility settings. But the fact of the matter is while that is very much true, there is more population that can be really well served by this. I just want to point that out. Somebody with a significant learning disability, a textbased challenge specifically math or characters, or two-dimensional symbolic representation of information that they had a problem with that, not just text to speech but also talkback might help them. It might help them use it or help them get reinforcement. Folks with significant physical disabilities were they just have issues with positioning and attending their eyes in the right direction towards the device, getting that auditory feedback might help. And then let’s not forget folks with sensory, memory, or short-term memory challenges or the ADD phenomena. If they’re learning style is such that auditory feedback helps, these things could help a ton. I know this teacher knows that but I just wanted to expand or advocate for those types of groups. As these technologies are really developing, and they really are, and the voices get better and are much more responsive, they are helping all these types of populations.
BRIAN NORTON: That is very true.
MARK STEWART: Belva or Brian, can you guys – another thing that might be worth tweezing out is the difference between text to speech and voiceover. Maybe I’m splitting here’s a little bit, but really people intermixed those terms a lot.
BELVA SMITH: People do take text to speech and screen reader and assume that they are the same when they are not.
BRIAN NORTON: I think for me, though I distinguish those two things, essentially you are getting text to speech in both realms; however, I think if you have a print disability, something like a learning disability, having difficulty reading, those kinds of things, text to speech is what you may be the term you’re looking for when you’re looking for software. What it does is it allows you – you can still visually see the screen, navigate the screen with your eyes, be able to point that the text that you want to read to yourself, and just simply select it and read it on the fly. Whereas a screen reader like talkback and voiceover is meant – again this is my opinion – but you are looking to navigate everything. You need everything spoken, so you’re not able to visually see the screen, so you need a spoken representation of what is there no matter what you land on. It could be a control, text, a button, and icon, you need something spoken back to you in that realm. Both are really speech to text, because even when you land on an icon with a screen reader, it is still reading a textual representation of that that is in the programming in the background, so it is still text to speech.
BELVA SMITH: But your text to speech is going to give you the text information. Your screen reader is going to give you the screen information whether it is text or – what were you just saying, Brian? The component you are interacting with like a dropbox or a list view. Text to speech isn’t going to read the list view to you or a radio button, but your screen reader will.
BRIAN NORTON: Right. A screen reader will give you more information.
BELVA SMITH: Before we leave, I just want to throw out there to this lady, was reading for the android is supposed to work – and you can find it in the store – but it is supposed to read highlighted text and selected text for you.
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BRIAN NORTON: If you haven’t done so already and have a question percolating in your mind –
BELVA SMITH: Someone wanting a cup of coffee?
BRIAN NORTON: Bubbling up.
WADE WINGLER: Where is my Folgers Choice sound effect when I need it?
BRIAN NORTON: Don’t hesitate to give us an email or tweet. Email is tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. You can tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ and that you come to us as well. Our next question is through twitter with the hashtag ATFAQ.
BELVA SMITH: A twitter question. Wow.
BRIAN NORTON: Samantha, the question was what are your must-have Samsung and android accessibility apps? This is a whole show on Samsung and android. I’ll throw that out to the group. Your must-have android accessibility apps.
WADE WINGLER: I find that a lot of the apps that I use and like the best our multi platform so that is my copout. I use a lot of stuff like Evernote or Trello, Evernote for keeping track of archived information and projects and tasks and things like that, and Trello is one I like to use to keep track of short-term projects or shared products were a lot of things are being checked off the box. The good news is I’m finding that more and more of the popular apps that I like to use, especially if they are cloud based, are going to work, not only on iOS and android but also in web browsers. I’m finding myself a little less freaked out when somebody asks me about android because I’m finding more and more stuff is multi platform. That is my copout.
BRIAN NORTON: That is nice. I’ve had some experience with built-in technology, so the S Voice which is a lot like Siri. I use this for a client who was having difficulty, she had a very soft voice and needed to be able to voice activate her phone. Much like you can do with hey Siri on your iPhone, you can also do that with S Voice. With S Voice you can set up any auditory command. I think we set up the command shut up and that was something she could say consistently and it was perfect so we set that up as her way to make a S Voice for her so that she could then boys operate many things on her Samsung. That was her choice. I said maybe we should do that but she decided that was what worked best for her and she wanted it so we can put that. That is S Voice.
MARK STEWART: That whole concept, I’ve got to jump on board with it. That is still bleeding edge technology. Don’t get me wrong, it is working but it is just coming out. We are trying to remember that is it fully on android yet or is it just Apple. Even the experience that happens with him as an echo, that really, in my mind, is a watershed moment. There are so many folks that are going to get a great deal of benefit out of being able to not even have to touch the device at all to get that auditory feedback. I think it’s just a really great time.
WADE WINGLER: I guess I want to hijack the question is a little bit because many of our listeners on ATFAQ know that I also host a susceptibility update. That usually includes a weekly interview. I would love to do an interview with somebody that is called something like android accessibility for iPhone users. So for people like myself who are pretty solid with using iOS devices and accessibility but struggled a little bit with android, I would like to interview someone on my show to talk about that. If there is someone listening to this program and think that they could have a 15 minute conversation with me explaining you do it this way on iOS, here it is on android. I think that would be a fun show to do. If you’re interested, treat us cutthroat ATFAQ in there, say something about you are an android expert or know about android accessibility. Or shoot us an email at tech at Easter Seals crossroads award. I will get a copy of that. We would love to find an expert into a show on that.
BELVA SMITH: Every time I am with a client that has android and they want to know what app they can get to do this, the first thing I say is can I see your phone. Because I’m just excited to try and look to see what I can do with that phone. I am an iPhone user and I’m really not that familiar with the apps. I’m pretty sure that there is an app for the android that will do everything that the iPhone will do. It is just a matter of what it is called. Mark, before I throw it back to you, one of the apps I would throw out to the caller is called protector app. It is a call and web lock. What I’m reading about it is it great for a parent who may have given an android phone or tablets to their son or daughter because it allows you to filter the call logs and the message logs, but it also is an easy way for you to catch up on the call you may have missed while you had your phone off or silenced or whatever. You can use a passcode to log in and out to access the information. That way you can know exactly what your kids are up to or what you’re missing when you don’t have it on. It is free in the Google place door.
MARK STEWART: Just a couple for my folks. Voice dream reader and actually voice dream writer. They’re now available on android. Those are great for folks with some print-based learning disabilities, learning challenges. I go back to what Wade was saying, and Belva you just said it, that things are becoming much more cross platform. Dragon mobile is great. One other thing that you guys know, BridgingApps, I just don’t know anybody saying it. Wade, why don’t you take the ball. That is a great place for this person to check out as well.
BRIAN NORTON: I would jump in there. There are several really useful places to go. BridgingApps.org has a really great resource if you’re looking for in Angie’s list of assistive technology or, in this case, apps. BridgingApps has a really great search tool where you can choose what device you are using, android or iOS, you can put skill level and age level and hone down on particular apps that would be useful for you. What is really nice about their site is a lot of those apps all have been reviewed by either parents who are introducing the technology to their children or from special educators and so on and so forth, therapists, so there’s often times really good reviews about real-life expenses with that app and how that works.
Another great resource would be AppleVis.com. You’ll find they talk a lot about Apple accessibility or Apple apps for the visually impaired, but what I have found on their website, if you look for android types of things or if you search for android, they will have helpful information about what may be out there for android and other things. They are mainly Apple. They talk about Apple technology. But I have found some different resources when I’m looking for what is the iPhone compared to an android app do for you. They’ve got some helpful information as well.
The other one I would throw out there as well is From the Ark has a great tech toolbox. The tech toolbox is pretty interesting because it not only talks about apps but it talks about regular assistive technology as well. Much like the BridgingApps website, it has a very good filter for honing in on specific types of technology you are looking for based on age, what you’re using it for, all sorts of different filters for you to use. That is something I’ve just recently become aware of.
WADE WINGLER: It is sort of in beta. It is not fully out there.
BRIAN NORTON: I don’t think it is fully out there but it is a pretty good resource. I look at that quite a bit.
MARK STEWART: I’ll chime in with something. It’s not about a specific app. So if it is too much of a broad thought. It is a great question, a fun question, but it is a shotgun kind of question. As I’m listening to you guys talk, I’m thinking there is another way to look about this if we are really serious about needing an answer for apps. I think we all take this approach, but what we care about first is all of the subtleties and particular things about what the person needs and needs right now, and then I think because apps are being developed and updated and released or dropped off and things are changing so fast that we handled this two ways. One, we want to have a good understanding about what is available and we try to stay current and keep a lot of things in our toolbox. But we also just realize how fast this target is moving? We find out what the person we’re working with today needs and then without apology we will go to these great resources ourselves and come current today and picked out what we think is best for that person today on the device that they want to use that they are most familiar?
WADE WINGLER: I give a lot of talks about apps. One of the things I like to say at the beginning of a one hour or two hour talk is, whatever are on my slides are things that put together in the last few days. By the end of this talk, more apps will come out, new stuff will happen, and maybe something I talk about during this talk two weeks from now will be irrelevant because of the fast-changing nature of this landscape. I think that point is very well taken.
BELVA SMITH: I want to say that Google is working really hard to make as much accessible apps and features as they possibly can. If you just go to support.google.com, you will learn a lot about the accessible android features.
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BRIAN NORTON: Our next question isn’t android related.
WADE WINGLER: Yay.
BELVA SMITH: It isn’t or it is?
BRIAN NORTON: It is Windows related. I was updating my computer to Windows 10, and the insulation didn’t complete. Now I need to reset my computer. What do I need to do?
BELVA SMITH: Uh-oh.
WADE WINGLER: “Nuke” it.
BELVA SMITH: The first thing I wonder from this question is, so it didn’t complete. I’m assuming then we are still able to get into Windows 7 hopefully or 8. If you can, then you can simply do a system restore. But if it didn’t complete but you got Windows 10 but it is just funky, then you can get into the reset by pressing your Windows key, the key on the bottom left side that looks like a Windows symbol, and then “L”. That will take you to the sign in screen where you can choose power, while holding shift, and then restart. From there you can say reset this PC. It is three steps.
WADE WINGLER: Stand on one foot.
BRIAN NORTON: Can you repeat that?
BELVA SMITH: Three steps. Windows+L, Shift and “Power”, and then reset this PC. That will only work if it got Windows 10 on there. If it didn’t get Windows 10 on there, then your best bet is to look for a system restore disk and start over.
BRIAN NORTON: Okay. You said your system restore disk — can you go through the start menu and find the system restore point?
BELVA SMITH: Yeah, if you can get to it. I think a lot of the websites are suggesting that you make restore media before you try to do the upgrade to Windows 10 in case this does happen, because many of us don’t have our restore disk. If it is just someplace on the hard drive, you probably aren’t going to be able to get to it.
BRIAN NORTON: If you’re going to load Windows 10, make sure you set up a recovery drive. There’s a process for making that happen where you can help that along. We are starting to see lots of folks, since it’s almost being pushed now, three Windows updates –
BELVA SMITH: Time is running out. The freebie will end in June.
BRIAN NORTON: June or July.
MARK STEWART: July.
BRIAN NORTON: It is coming up soon. I’m even singing now pushed. It comes up and your computer will say ready to update.
BELVA SMITH: That is because they put it in the Windows updates now. It’s not going to automatically install cop but it will come through on your Windows updates automatically.
BRIAN NORTON: I’ve had probably two or three instances where I have heard of situation where the installation didn’t go well and now they have to either reset their PC or stick in their recovery drive to be able to restore their information. It is not uncommon.
BELVA SMITH: I’ve been very fortunate. The couple of times I’ve done it, it has worked seamlessly. In less than 45 minutes, I’ve gone from Windows 7 to Windows 10. But have heard the horror stories where folks have been three, four times trying to do it and aren’t able to do it. For that reason, Microsoft has actually put a download link on their website so that you can go there and download a full install of Windows 10 and then actually do a clean installation of Windows 10. So instead of doing the update from 7, your actually going to zap the machine and do a clean install of Windows 10. They did that because so many folks were having trouble doing the upgrade.
WADE WINGLER: And operating system installation is one of those things where it normally goes fine, normally takes longer than you want, but when it doesn’t go well, you have some serious decisions to make because it has broken at a really rude level. I’m not sure anyone set it. I’ve been on a Mac for a while, but I used to remember that when Windows was booting, you could hit F8 and that would bring you into your recovery mode.
BELVA SMITH: Now it is all kinds of F’s. It might be F2, F8, F9. It depends on the manufacturer of the PC.
WADE WINGLER: I think I’m Windows in general it takes you to the advanced options where it will bring you to safemode or blocking or directory services, and then restore mode and all that kind of stuff. You probably want to look up your specific PC and get instructions.
BELVA SMITH: Do your research before you push the button to do the upgrade. Make sure you have your files backed up that are important to you and try to have restore media in case you have to do it.
WADE WINGLER: Which I guess would be a case for arguing for backups. Make sure you are backed up before you do this.
MARK STEWART: Rather than having anything to add, what a great important question and answers. Let’s say I’m a consumer client in a not very computer savvy at all and it is part of the scope of what you’re doing to help them to get them upgraded to Windows 10. What are the steps? How would you conservatively set things up in case there is a problem?
BELVA SMITH: Did you say this person is one of our clients?
MARK STEWART: Just generically. But someone who needs to help but you are teaching them do it. Something you are just talking about, kind of the summary.
BRIAN NORTON: I think Belva mentioned it. Make sure you have your information backed up. I would probably go do the download to make sure I have something in case things go wrong. So I would probably download Windows 10 from Microsoft.com and I would probably then go ahead and do the upgrade on the computer and just keep that downloaded version at a backup for myself in case things get screwy.
BELVA SMITH: Kind of the same safety precautions you take doing any upgrade. You want to make sure you have your files backed up. You want to make sure that you got restore media. If this thing goes haywire, who knows what you’re going to get. You may end up getting absolutely nothing but a black screen. You’ve got to be able to then boot to that media. So just having a restore partition on your hard drive isn’t going to be good enough. You need it to be either on a USB drive or a CD or something so you can do it to that to get yourself back to Windows to then do the fresh install.
BRIAN NORTON: Make sure you have CDs for your other software. Microsoft office, any of your adaptive, assistive technology.
BELVA SMITH: Let me clarify that also. If you do the upgrade from 7 to 10 , and you are running Microsoft office 2003 or 2010, if you do the upgrade, it will be there. It will be there no problem. If you do this clean install, it will not be there. It’s very important to remember if you are doing the clean install, you will have to reinstall all of your software.
BRIAN NORTON: If it is an upgrade , you’re going to be just fine. If you’re going to do a complete reinstall, it is not. Make sure you have those things. Maybe make sure you also have not only the software but any of their license codes , serial numbers, authorization numbers, all of those things are available to you because you’ll want those if things go haywire.
BELVA SMITH: For my clients that are depending on screen readers, you will probably need cited assistance because at some point you will be without any voice.
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BRIAN NORTON: Our next question is from John. This is a voicemail that he left us. We will pay that for you.
SPEAKER: This is John calling from Ocean Pines. I called a couple of weeks ago. I do have an area that the crew on ATFAQ could discuss. That is an article about accessible appliances. My wife and I are thinking about purchasing several new appliances, and I would like to have a discussion group on it. I think would be very helpful. As a side note, I tried to find the article on your webpage and have never been on it before. I can find it. I’m sort of flying blind here. Have a great day.
BRIAN NORTON: Essentially his question is wanting to discuss some accessible appliances and those kinds of things. He referenced a recent blog post we did hear through the INDATA Project which is Indiana’s assistive technology act project. You can find that information at www.eastersealstech.com/blog. You can go there and search through our blogs. We did do a recent post on that so you can find it there. I invited a resident expert here with our agency, John Kelly. He actually does lots of home modifications. You want to tell folks a little bit about you.
JOHN KELLY: Thanks Brian. I’m John Kelly. My background is in rehabilitation. I worked in a lot of hospital and outpatient settings helping people after an injury or overcoming a disability and being able to get back home. Last 8 to 10 years, I’ve been doing home modification evaluations and consulting with folks in their homes about ways to make their homes more accessible and more safe for them to be able to get done what they need to do at home and be able to access the community as well. Through that, I learned a lot about the different products and ways to make somebody’s home more accessible.
WADE WINGLER: Around here we consider you the McIver of all things so modification.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s right.
JOHN KELLY: I’ve been called worse.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s great. Let’s talk about a starting point. Where do people start when they need to start thinking about designing a kitchen or accessible appliance and those kinds of things. Is there a place to start?
JOHN KELLY: Unfortunately there is not really a showroom for accessible design. There is not an accessible appliance showroom. Really the best place to start with think about it is starting with what you’re going to use the space for and trying to plan the function of the space around what it is you’re going to do. So kind of working through the process of cooking a meal or doing the laundry and then trying to set up your area like that. Having said that, the big box home stores do have lots of appliances on display, and it is a great place to go and try everything out. A lot of that is personal preference and has to do with your budget and the size and space of what you have available. Going to those big box stores is a great place to go try things out. There are lots of accessible features on appliances that aren’t necessarily marketed accessible just because of the universal design movement. There are so many things now, buttons and switches, doors open , and cabinets that are in the general public that you can go out and try. I definitely recommend doing that. If you’re trying to decide between one or another, going to one of these stores and trying out the different features is pretty necessary for you to spend money on something.
BRIAN NORTON: Those are places like Menard’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s. I’m sure in your neck of the woods you probably have other places. Those of the big box stores.
WADE WINGLER: I love that you talked about thinking about the task first. That’s so true in almost all of assistive technology. People will say what is a good app for this or what is a good thing for that. What are you going to do with it and let’s start from there because that makes all the difference in the world.
JOHN KELLY: That is true also. The individual is the other big part of that. People ask me what the right height is for a counter top. It depends. What is the height that you’re at? That is the right height. Going and trying different heights and trying the way doors open different directions and finding the one that works for your situation is the right height.
WADE WINGLER: It might be worth mentioning that there are ADA guidelines that talk about public accommodations and averages and things like that. That doesn’t necessarily hold true in the home. Those might be good places to start but customizing it to that individual’s needs is the key.
JOHN KELLY: Absolutely. You hear good and bad about ADA guidelines. There is a lot of research that went into ADA guidelines in a lot of averages, like you said. I reference it all the time as a starting point and then go one direction or the other based on the individual needs.
BRIAN NORTON: We talked about the universal design movement and the fact that in putting things that aren’t necessarily marketed as accessible but are pretty accessible technologies and today’s types of appliances, stoves, dishwashers, those kinds of things. I’ve been in some kitchenware there is this uber accessibility where they are height adjustable and maybe they can move and do different things like that. Are there places to look for those? Are those kind of custom-made situations?
JOHN KELLY: I’m not aware of a showroom where you can look at that. There are websites and you can deftly spend the money on those. They are height adjustable cabinets, sinks, countertops, and they all have their own motors and accessible switches and you can adjust the height and it makes them universal. That tends to be a price point thing. For those that can afford it, it is the gold. The more moving parts you have and the more things that can go wrong, will go wrong. Those things are not always the best depending on your skill level or your resources for maintaining it in the future as well. That is another thing I think need to be considered if you’re looking at those types of high-tech modifications.
BRIAN NORTON: I would figure getting your hands on something by being able to go in touch and experience it would give you a really good understanding. We do that with all of the electronics aids for daily living and assisted knowledge that we use. We want to bring lots of things for the person to be able to try out cut experience, before they make that purchase to make sure it is going to work for them. But if you can’t get your hands on it, there is no showroom to experience how it moves and operates, that’s probably a hard decision.
If people are looking for or need assistance in this area , are there places they can call to be able to have someone like you come out and help consult and those types of situations?
JOHN KELLY: There are. Here in central Indiana, we provide that service. I make a referral to us through Easter Seals crossroads. We provide competent evaluation. There are folks all across the country that do this. One resource for finding those folks is the CAPS certification, certified aging and placed specialist. Oftentimes if you look for someone who is a CAPS specialist as well as a therapist, a physical or occupational therapist, that is a great pairing of skill sets. Someone that understands rehabilitation but also disease process and then has had this specialty training in this area can provide an evaluation to help determine what your needs are.
BRIAN NORTON: Talking about different features, we are talking about the kitchen design and the appliances. Are there certain features people to consider when they’re looking at accessible appliances?
JOHN KELLY: Absolutely. I use the caveat about designing the space first. That’s definitely true. But then also when you’re looking cut there are teachers that I have found with experience to be helpful. When you talk about ovens, the wall mount ovens, the wall installed ovens are everywhere now. They can be installed at pretty much any height. So if you think about those really high ones, they may not be accessible for someone in a wheelchair, but if it is installed in a cabinet at a custom height, that becomes accessible. One of the things I look for is can you reach the controls and also what are you going to do with that food as you pull it out of the oven and where is it going to go. Having the rack at the right height to be able to remove the food in place it on a worksurface are two of the things you want to look for. They also make ovens with side doors to flip that are out-of-the-way sort of like your microwave oven does. That way you can design your space based on which door the door will go so I can move the food in the opposite direction.
A couple other appliances, let’s say stove tops. Have you seen the glass still tops? They are out there and can be installed in a countertop with open underneath so if someone needs to roll up underneath it. It’s a stovetop that has a glass surface and can be mounted pretty much flush with the work surface so that pots and pans can slide on and off rather than having to lift them on and off. They also have these induction stove tops where the service doesn’t even get warm. Only the pot or pan gets warm. It’s easy to prevent burns that way. These are sort of a price point item that can be expensive but is a wonderful safety future.
One of my favorite ones is the cabinet dishwasher. Have you seen these? It looks almost like a cabin in your kitchen. Instead of opening up and having pots and pans in there, you open it up and there is your dishwasher. It opens up kind of like a drawer and then you load it and close it just like a drawer. They are smaller capacity but they installed right in the cabinet and are very easy for a variety of uses to access.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s excellent.
JOHN KELLY: Let me just mention laundry as well, another appliance that folks – the biggest thing with laundry is providing the space, the access. So getting the laundry on the level of the home you can get at and in planning the workspace. Where are you going to bring the laundry in? Where are you going to sort it? Where are you going to fold it? Planning which direction the doors are going to open so that you don’t have a door in your way as your moving clothing from one to the other. It’s another one of these universal design areas. The front loaders are everywhere and everyone is using them, but they are much more accessible for most folks. The biggest key is the height. Getting a cabinet underneath or even just a box or something that you can build a custom height to get the laundry at the right height for that user is one of the biggest things.
WADE WINGLER: Those are great. Are there anymore?
JOHN KELLY: The refrigerator freezer. It’s another universal design. You’ve seen so many different designs come out in the last few years about which way the doors open and where the placement of the freezer is. This is one I absolutely recommend going to the appliance store and shopping run because a lot of it is personal preference. The big favorite right now that most folks are loving is the double open doors on top refrigerator on top with two French style doors, and then a drawer freezer on the bottom. The drawer freezer you can pull off and be off to one side and be able to access the freezer. The refrigerator you can open from the center and be able to access most things. They do have ADA designated refrigerator freezers as well where everything is sort of before 54 inches so that most users can reach the entire refrigerator. Of course the indoor ice and water is another feature that everybody loves but is a great accessibility feature well. Small appliances are often difficult to access, so a lot of cabinet designs now have special features, pull out cabinets that you can store small appliances on, pull them out. They have pullouts that are at the work surface height. They also have hydraulic lifts and you can open and will assist in lifting up a heavy appliance up to an accessible height. Storage becomes a big issue with those small appliances, but there are so many aftermarket add-ons that you can get for the storage of the small appliances.
BRIAN NORTON: Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that.
WADE WINGLER: Thanks for hanging out with us. Great answers. We appreciate that.
BRIAN NORTON: Perfect.
JOHN KELLY: Absolutely , glad to help. Thanks for having me.
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WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
BRIAN NORTON: So our next question is the wildcard question of the week. This where I throw it over to Wade and he does is an off-the-wall question.
BELVA SMITH: We all put our mitts on and get ready to catch.
WADE WINGLER: You never know what you’re going to get.
BRIAN NORTON: Sometimes I duck.
WADE WINGLER: We have all heard about or seen the fact that Amazon has been talking for a while about using drones to deliver a package. It’s instant Amazon delivery. There is some argument that they are dealing with federal regulations, FAA regulations about can they fly their drones to do that or not. In the news recently, I heard that Domino’s Pizza is doing a thing called a DRU, a Domino’s robotic units. Basically it’s the thing that looks like kind of a very small Zamboni machine that sort of drives around your neighborhood, shows up at your door, and raises up a lid. And it is your pizza in one heated compartment, and your soda pop or beverage in the cool compartment. I was listening to an interview, and apparently Domino’s leadership is something around that they would like to use robots for every part of their operation. If you think about pizzas, those are fairly standard things. It is very possible that not only would Amazon deliver things via drones, dominoes would deliver pizzas via these units or maybe even have robots making your pizza. The question is what you think about this? And then what do you think this trend might mean for folks with disabilities?
BELVA SMITH: I’m just glad that they are using something that drives around instead of a drone, because I don’t want to be to drop on my head.
WADE WINGLER: That would make a horrible hat.
BRIAN NORTON: That is a good question.
BELVA SMITH: You still have to call an order that pizza.
WADE WINGLER: You can use your app.
BRIAN NORTON: Is everything moving towards computers and robots? I think of the car industry where they use to employ thousands of people. Next week I’m going to the Toyota plans to tour it because everything is put together by robots and they tore you through and you get to see all these robots putting together cars. There are some people running those robots in making sure they run well, but the robots are doing all of the manual labor. I just find it interesting that pizza will move in that direction as well.
WADE WINGLER: If you think about it, and the more populated areas, you have people who are walking or driving or maybe even bicycling to deliver pizzas. If you can have a series of robust doing that, doesn’t that make sense?
BRIAN NORTON: I’ve actually seen the commercial for this. Have you seen the commercial?
WADE WINGLER: A part of it, yeah.
BRIAN NORTON: It looks pretty cool. I guess as a person who ordered the pizza, but my pizza is hot in my pop is col, I think I’ll be just a happy customer just like I would if a person were delivering it.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t know how I feel about this. I think about eight, nine months ago we had the pizza delivery guy in our area that was shot who had $26 in his pocket. This method I am assuming I am probably paying, so the robot or car isn’t going to have any cash in hand, so no one will be robbing him.
WADE WINGLER: My guess is you are going to do your credit card as part of the app or whatever. It will already be done with a credit card.
BELVA SMITH: Though we will put people out of jobs, at least it will not get shot over $26. I don’t know how I feel about the robot making my pizza either.
WADE WINGLER: I know my family goes to Cosco on Sunday afternoons. Brian Norton got turned on to that. They have a thing that is a pizza platter spinner. So they put down a flattened piece of dough and it spins like a record and there is this arm that squirts tomato sauce on it and moves towards the center as it rotates. My kids love to sit there and eat $1.99 slices of pizza and watch this robot arm make their pizza. It’s pretty phenomenal. We are doing that already in that way.
BELVA SMITH: I remember growing up, I use to like to go to Noble Roman’s because they had the window where you could stand and watch the guy though your pizza crust up in the air and catch it. So it went from a little ball to your extra large pizza size.
MARK STEWART: They got that delicious cornmeal stuff on the bottom.
BRIAN NORTON: Here is something out there out there. I love sitting at Cosco and I love watching that sauce thing. I could spend hours watching that.
WADE WINGLER: We had a very simple life here.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s amazing. The last part of your question, what about folks with disabilities, what kinds of implication with this have? In one way, I could look at the task of having a robot to some of those things that require a lot of the sturdy and fine motor control to be able to make a pizza. It can make that more visible process for folks. If there is always someone there overseeing the process, it might make that task for someone who has some physical challenges, dexterity, fine motor control, gross motor control, those kinds of things, they could make the job more accessible for them. But then I also think about if you’re being delivered a pizza from a robot, I’m sure the robot isn’t as considerate to be able to notice who they are delivering the pizza too. When the delivery pizza to someone, taking the extra step to help me should they get the proper change and all that. It takes that personal touch out.
WADE WINGLER: It takes away the deep, meaningful experience you have with your pizza delivery guy?
BRIAN NORTON: Yeah.
BELVA SMITH: We are taking the personal effect out of everything. Even going to the doctor. Just what we were talking about this morning, we are taking the personal effect out of everything. It’s all going to be you and a robot.
WADE WINGLER: It works for Luke Skywalker.
BRIAN NORTON: Going back to Wade’s comments, when you order pizza as much as I do, I have a personal relationship with my pizza delivery guy.
MARK STEWART: Does the robot have a mullet?
WADE WINGLER: No. He doesn’t drive a 1990 Ford fiesta either.
BELVA SMITH: I think I’ll put this in the category of some of the other questions you ask us.
WADE WINGLER: I can’t wait to hear what you call that category.
BELVA SMITH: In the wild card. You have asked before so how does this have a role for people with different abilities? I think it has the same effect for all of us because it is – I hate saying it because this makes me sound old, but it is putting people out of jobs, whether they are different ability or not. I’ve had a consumer whose job it was twofold pizza boxes.
WADE WINGLER: Me too.
BELVA SMITH: Now we’ve got a robot that’s going to pull those pizza boxes. That job is gone. Now we are going to put a robot in the car to deliver the pizza. Now that job is gone. I think it’s going to have both positive and negative effects for all of us. The positive is, okay, maybe we don’t have a job anymore but we can probably get a pizza quicker, hotter, and more perfect from a robot. We just don’t have any money to pay for it because we don’t have jobs.
WADE WINGLER: But someone will take care of that robot. It’s interesting. I think when we talked about driverless cars not too long ago, or self driving cars, we were pretty positive about that. Maybe it was just me that I and how excited I was.
BELVA SMITH: I think everyone in the room was except me.
WADE WINGLER: How is this different that your pizza will show up in basically a self driving car that we are calling a robot as opposed to the one that gets me where I want to go. There is something about it that is different and I can’t exactly figure out why I feel differently about the pizza versus the easy drive to work.
BRIAN NORTON: Is a completely autonomous car? Is there not a driver in there who will take care?
WADE WINGLER: There are dominoes that have built-in things, but no, it looks like a big argument or something the size of a treasure chest or something that drives up the sidewalk, stopped in front of your door, raises up a new grabber pizza. Then he goes away.
MARK STEWART: To Belva’s point, as she was saying it’s, I respected it so much and it was such a concern and a great point, I was sitting here, solve the problem. The only thing I can say, so robots are advancing and they are taking over some traditional jobs that people with disabilities had. But now is assistive technology advancing, or isn’t that our challenge, to have assistive technology advanced to where that’s in person or the person with that same profile now can run the store because of some other adaptive technology? That’s what we would hope for. I’ve just taken two shots of Pepto-Bismol during this conversation. I’m calling into the show for a reason. Thanks a lot for this question , Wade. My serious answers are along the lines of what Brian said, may be the concern that as this is cutting edge stuff that they are not thinking so much about what the actual human being can do for someone who is differently abled at the door. They are digging the person has to go out and open the box and do all that kind of stuff.
WADE WINGLER: Good point.
BRIAN NORTON: That personal relationship.
WADE WINGLER: You and the guy with a mullet just got replaced.
BRIAN NORTON: Absolutely. Doug is a great guy. I like him a lot.
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BRIAN NORTON: Thanks everyone. Again here is how to find our show. You can search as assisted larger questions on iTunes. You can look for us on stitcher or visit us at our website. It’s ATFAQshow.com. Also please send us your questions or your feedback. You can call our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can send us a tweet at hashtag ATFAQ. Or email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We want your questions. In fact without your questions, we don’t really have a show. Have a great week everybody.
WADE WINGLER: Information provided on Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted by Brian Norton; gets editorial support from mark steward and Belva Smith; is produced by me, Wade Wingler; and receives support from Easter Seals Crossroads and the INDATA project. ATFAQ is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more of our shows at www.accessibilitychannel.com.
