Welcome to Access on Main Street. We cover mainstream products that, by chance or design, make life easier for an elder or a person with a disability. We want to inform consumers, inspire designers, and wake up marketers to opportunities with these underserved customers. Please comment on our articles, and point us to your own mainstream nuggets.
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Waddle it do?
The little MyDeskFriend robot penguin fails to out-cute the Nabaztag–in fact, its lit-up eyes make it a little creepy–but it does read your Facebook messages aloud. It can also respond to voice commands, although we may not know until it’s commercially available later this year if those commands have any accessibility-practical uses.
Let me call you tweetheart
We’ve previously posted about Twitter setups that turn fetal kicks into tweets, and we’ve stopped ourselves from posting about a few similar but less tasteful applications. However, we’re intrigued by a Japanese setup that, at the press of a button, evaluates your pulse and sends a message indicating whether the rate is too fast, too slow, juuuust right, or a fourth option (non-existent?). This could be a tool to help people with limited onsite access to medical or caregiver assistance, particularly if it could somehow be automated rather than user-initiated.
Crunchgear: Heart beat posting device lets your Twitter followers know you’re alive
No one wants to be defeated
There’s a scene in Airplane! where a scoop of reporters heads simultaneously into a row of phone booths, and the booths fall straight over. Google found itself facing a sort of electronic equivalent yesterday when the volume of Michael Jackson searches started to look like a malware attack, so their response was to put up a “We’re sorry…” page that required filling out a CAPTCHA to continue. Now, Google does know something about semi-accessible CAPTCHAs–the login page for a Google account includes an audio CAPTCHA, which is usable by blind but not learning disabled individuals (the audio and visual do not match, so people who benefit from multi-sensory input will be even more confused). However, as far as we can tell, yesterday’s CAPTCHA didn’t even have the audio. Not a good precedent for situations where people will be turning to the Web in ever increasing numbers for information on natural disasters or other emergencies. It’s serious…and don’t call us Shirley.
Warm colors
We’ve written before about products that change color to indicate temperature changes; now, just in time for Father’s Day, similar technology can be applied to your progeny. The Babyglow sleeper starts out in traditional hues, but changes to white when baby is running a fever. This could be helpful to parents with some visual, dexterity or cognitive disabilities.
OhGizmo: Babyglow Garment Changes Color When Your Baby Is Running A Fever
What’s good for the gooseneck
The greatest technology in the world isn’t much help if the user can’t reach it. Various mounting arms designed for the accessibility market are available, but they tend to be grossly expensive and hard to adjust. Enter the Super Universal Car Mount, which holds up to three gadgets in what looks to be perfect mouthstick or limited motion range. The arms look like they’re adjustable pretty much any which way. All this for only $30. Super, indeed.
OhGizmo: Triple gooseneck dashboard mount doesn’t seem distracting at all
Uncle Wigglymouse
Most of us are comfortable with the shape of the standard mouse, but for some people having to use it with their wrists facing downward is uncomfortable if not painful. A company named Smartfish is apparently made up of smart cookies; they’ve created a mouse on a base that can be pivoted front/back and left/right until you find the exact right comfortable position.