Access on Main Street

We’ve always liked the eyedropper tool in paint programs that let you select a color from an existing graphic or picture and use it elsewhere. Apparently someone else also liked this feature enough to try importing it to the real world. The Color Picker Pen (just a prototype for now) can be pointed at any object; the color is then recorded and is reproduced when the pen is applied to paper. Our guess is that people with various types of visual disabilities could make good use of this for communicating information about clothing, wallpaper, or other items they want to color-coordinate.

OhGizmo: Color Picker Pen

Yes, we realize the terminally pink Keyboard for Blondes is basically a joke. But, like, honest, it does have some features that could be turned to accessibility purposes. The keys talk back when you press them, and some of the rewritten key names make more sense than the original (“Backspace” has no relatable real-world meaning; “Oops!” does). And our clients who complain about having too many keys they don’t need would be amused by having the F1-F12 set retitled as “U S E L E S S K E Y S.”

Keyboard for Blondes

We’ve commented before on potential problems with multitouch interfaces and dexterity access. Now a Finnish design company has come up with one type of solution that’s promising for people with use of one finger that has some level of movement. Linja Zax lets you zoom in or out simply by rotating a finger right or left. It’s available now and open source, so have at it!

Linja Design: Linja Zax

Here come soda vending machines with enormous touchscreen LCDs instead of pushbuttons, displaying tantalizing animated beverages and letting you make your selection from a series of screens.  The usual two-edged access sword we get with touchscreens: the size of the targets and contextual clarity of the interface may make it attractive to some folks with cognitive or dexterity disabilities, while blind and low vision users will be mystified by the silent, unfeelable control.  It’s touchscreen ATMs all over again; Commissioner, activate the Lainey Feingold beacon!

Note that this soda machine has a WiFi interface to aid in managing malfunctions and soda supply.  If users can log in from their accessible wireless devices, and select and pay through their preferred interface, we have a winner.

Coming Soon: Touch Screen Vending Machines | PSFK

Chalk up another no-brainer conclusion from the world of mobile usability: a survey from Mformation finds that 85% of customers have trouble getting a new phone working, and 95% would try new services if they were easier to figure out.  We think both of those numbers are actually 100% — someone’s lying, or teenagers snuck into the survey pool.  So really, why can’t these products and services have simpler interfaces and better contextual help?  Everyone — not just people with cognitive disabilities — would benefit.

Survey finds mobile phone setup to be excruciatingly difficult – Engadget Mobile

Looks like Sony is about to be the first of a flurry of companies to release remote controls that work by using radio frequency rather than infrared. The major advantage of RF for people with dexterity or visual disabilities is that it’s more flexible; you won’t have to point the remote within a specific “line of sight” for it to work.

Gadgetell: Forget pointing the remote at your TV, RF is coming

Virtual onscreen keyboards have been around for a long time as an accommodation strategy, especially for people with no use of their hands. Now a programmer named Brian Huisman has developed a different type of virtual keyboard that only pops up when the user encounters a website form field, as a way of avoiding possible interception by keylogging software. Brian, if you add some common accessibility options–starting with the ability to enter keystrokes by hovering over the keys rather than clicking–you’ll doubtless win the gratitude of not only potential users with disabilities, but anyone whose index finger starts throbbing after a dozen or so consecutive clicks.

Ubergizmo: Thwart Keyboard Logging Attempts With the Virtual Keyboard Interface