No Wonder Blind People Have So Much Difficulty Getting Jobs, Have You Checked Out Their Computer Situation Lately?

Alright, I don’t speak for all blind people, as I’ve said repeatedly in my books and on this blog. But I am among the visually impaired as surely as L. L. Bean is among the ducks and I seldom forget my ducks.

Two weeks ago my employer, the mighty University of Iowa bought me a new Dell Latitude laptop for use in my faculty office. It looked nice. It even came with a nifty docking station and a large screen. I thought the thing was handsome.

The new Dell is running Windows 7. W7 is reputed to be more stable and user friendly than earlier versions of Microsoft’s oft maligned operating system. “Huzzah!” thought I.

I should be among the first to admit that I like technology. I’m a fan. I bought an Apple IIE back in 1984. I got it because it could run the Echo speech board. And when Jaws for windows came out, I switched to the IBM pc world and found that every single new iteration of Windows was largely incompatible with the prior version of Jaws. And so I’ve spent a small fortune on upgrades for basic pc accessibility over the past twenty years. Why do blind people have to do this? Because Windows is not seamlessly accessible “out of the box” and visually impaired folks must buy what’s called “second party” software to run their computers. There are many brands of “accessibility” software but the screen reading program called Jaws is one of the leading ones. Jaws costs close to a thousand bucks to purchase. So blind people have to pay tons extra just to use a computer.

The new Windows 7 system is supposed to have its own screen reading software built in, along with screen magnification. “Huzzah!” thought I. “Let’s give it a go!”

Well of course it turns out that the W7 “narrator” is just a stunt or a gimmick–it’s not a fully functional screen reading program like Jaws (which though pricey does afford full functional access to most major Microsoft programs). So guess what? Blind people will still have to fork out the hefty price for Jaws or its competitors in order to effectively use the pc.

If you’re a visually impaired person this is all familiar enough.     

Ah but grasshopper, I was just getting started with my new Windows 7 journey. When I loaded Jaws it conflicted with the video drivers and voila the pc crashed. And so I upgraded Jaws and it still conflicted with the drivers. And so I called Dell and they examined my pc remotely and said my drivers were functioning correctly. And so I uninstalled and reinstalled everything.

This has all occurred during the first two weeks of classes at the university, a time when ramping up for teaching and for engaging with students and colleagues is very important. Perhaps there’s never a convenient time for a techno disaster, but having to occupy myself with these issues during just this period has been particularly maddening.

All of the madness is compounded by the fact that the University of Iowa has absolutely no one in their Information Technology program who is trained in using and supporting assistive technology. This is a bit of a scandal but my outspoken efforts to improve the situation have been ignored over the past three years. Like my friend William Peace the administration at Iowa has come to think of me as a “bad cripple” who is simply a thorn–largely because I keep insisting that we need to have accessible campus buildings and a dignified disability culture that stands for true inclusion. Call me a thorn if you must. I simply believe that 20 years after the ADA people should be able to work and go to the bathroom by golly. When I think of how low my utopian dreams have fallen I could just cry.

Given all the problems with Windows 7 and the Dell laptop and Jaws I began to think about switching to the new Mac. Apple has been touting (or is that “tooting”?) about its new “Voice Over” screen reading program that’s built into the OS 10 operating system. IN effect they’re bragging about how seamless and accessible the new Mac is for blind people.

So of course I tried it out with a loaner Mac from the university. What I discovered is that Voice Over doesn’t work with Mac’s version of Microsoft Office, the very productivity tool one needs to work at the University of Iowa. It doesn’t work with the Mac version of “Outlook” which is called “Entourage” nor does it work with the Mac version of “Word”. I spent hours last night combing through Apple’s unfriendly assistive technology website trying to gain information about why Voice Over couldn’t work with these essential tools. Lo and Behold, buried on a web page about programs that “do” work one finds by process of elimination that Voice Over won’t currently function with these all important programs.

And so, there goes the myth of the new groovy disability friendly Mac. If I didn’t have a job it might be fun to play with the thing, send e-mail via “Apple Mail” and keep a calendar with I Calendar, but these features are useless in my work place.

I hope if you’ve read this far that you’ll forgive the tedium of my post. But I need to say how disappointed I am that in this season of ADA anniversary celebrations we aren’t much further along in the accessible technology universe. Spending two weeks on this nonsense has utterly wearied me. It’s taken me away from writing, both on this blog and in my private affiliation with lyrical lingo. It’s kept me from responding to e-mails and phone calls. It’s kept me from the things I love.

At this point I don’t know if the Dell laptop is functional or not. We shall see. If this gritty process of access is like all the other miseries I’ve experienced with Windows upgrades Jaws and W7 will work okay in about 6 months.

I grieve for blind and visually impaired people. It’s not bad enough that they’re unemployed in staggering numbers, the software and hardware makers manage to make the whole journey harder, more expensive, more time consuming, and ultimately more frustrating than the customary technical problems that non-disabled people experience. We’re a long long way from being included in Mac-land and Windows-ville. Meanwhile, the cost of second party software like Jaws is unconscionable.

Have you ever tried to get an answer about accessibility problems from Apple or from Microsoft? Ha!

Ha Ha Ha!

I’ve had better luck talking to a rubber boot.

Did you know that the Finnish cell phone manufacturer “Nokia” used to be a maker of rubber boots back in the 19th century?

 

S.K.