Kenneth Spector - Coding without seeing the screen
- Posted: Aug 10, 2004 at 4:42 PM
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- 23 Comments
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Kenneth is working as an intern here at Microsoft for the summer on the Office team as a tester. He uses Visual Studio to find bugs (and to code on his own time). He writes emails in Outlook. Does all the usual stuff that most developers or testers at
Microsoft do. With one difference.
He can't see the screen because he's been blind since he was three years old.
He invited us over to see how he does his work -- you'll see how he uses a screen reader and a braille keyboard to use Visual Studio.
For more information on making technology more accessible to everyone, visit the Microsoft Accessibility page.
He's a student at Arizona State University. Wired Magazine has an article on the accessibility programs there.
Another good resource for developers is Joe Clark's "Building Accessible Websites."
Do you have any other examples of how computers are improving people's lives and giving them new opportunities?
He can't see the screen because he's been blind since he was three years old.
He invited us over to see how he does his work -- you'll see how he uses a screen reader and a braille keyboard to use Visual Studio.
For more information on making technology more accessible to everyone, visit the Microsoft Accessibility page.
He's a student at Arizona State University. Wired Magazine has an article on the accessibility programs there.
Another good resource for developers is Joe Clark's "Building Accessible Websites."
Do you have any other examples of how computers are improving people's lives and giving them new opportunities?
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Congrats. I am also disabled, though not blind, and have been similarly liberated through technology. Its good to see others succeeding against some common challenges.
Vinspiring... great great great...This is a great story. I admire Kenneth's "abilities".
It is something that makes me feel small and makes me humble.
It's good to see people overcoming seeming adversities. To us, it's a big deal. To them, it's everyday life.
We have a very strong focus on accessibility in our Visual Studio 2005 release. In addition, we have been working and testing with both JAWS, the screen reader Kenneth mentions in the video, produced by Freedom Scientific, and Window Eyes, a screen reader produced by GW Micro. If anyone has any feedback regarding accessibility of either Visual Studio .NET 2003 or Visual Studio 2005, please feel free to contact me via my blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford.
Thanks!
-sara
Thanks Kenneth for your Honestly during the interview. I am not only impressed by your abilities but by your dedication. Pleasing yourself first is a thing that most people seem to not grasp. I bet you made a lot of people think including myself. Thanks.
Windows Media Player cannot play the file because the specified protocol is not supported. In the Open URL dialog, try opening the file using a different protocol (for example, "http://* or "rtsp:").
Ok, i tried all of them
http://
mms://
rtsp://
mms://server/sami.asf?SAMI=http://server/sami/sami_demo.smi
Wow... this is really an inspiring post.
It also helped me to make a career choice move too.
Thanks
Technology is enabling people with disabilities?
Correct. If you have the money that is. Just to give some info:
A. A good screen reader such as Jaws, Supernova, etc, costs about 1500 dollars and above. Plus imagine having to pay that much or perhaps a bit less every year or so for updates to screen readers, just to make them work correctly with a new software, like the new version of Office or a new Windows service pack. The new Visual Studio for example, might work with the latest version of the mentioned screen readers. All users with previous versions of these readers however, who are 90% of the users, are stuck. Also, imagine having to pay that much for screen reader technology or for screen magnification technology for every partially sighted person at your school and for every computer that he/she uses just because the screen reader/magnification companies want to make even more money with their licensing. I am not saying that the effort that is required to build these software is not much. However, prices are usually too high and whatever you do there is always that newest update that you have to get.
B. A Braille display costs around 4000 dollars and above. Where will disabled persons find the extra cash? From a rich uncle’s inheritance perhaps.
C. The problem with the Windows platform becomes even worse, since most of the programs on that platform do not have a text command line based interface. Visually impaired persons have difficulties learning a graphical interface, especially if after each new version of the application their screen reader breaks. Also, the Narrator screen reader available in Windows is highly inadequate, although contrary to other popular and costly screen readers it seems to recognize screen elements correctly, even with new and graphically “difficult” applications. This should be an issue for Microsoft because the Linux based operating systems with their text interface seem to be a better choice for blind people. Not only that but there are Linux distributions which have a built-in screen reader in the kernel itself and even those distributions that do not come with a free screen reader, you can easily patch the kernel with free open source screen reader solutions. Even Emacs has its own screen reading solution called Emacspeak. For Linux you can find more accessibility aids for free such as software speech synthesizers. Compared to the high cost of Windows accessibility aids, the lack of functionality in Narrator and the gui only nature of Windows, other operating systems such as Linux might appear a better choice for a blind or partially sighted person at least at first glance.
I think that Microsoft should start making their software even more accessible from the ground up and try to add accessibility afterward. Also, MS should definitely improve the accessibility aids provided in Windows for free, such as Narrator.
Impressive stuff. I find people like Kenneth inspirational. Let's hope people like him can continue to encourage Microsoft to help people with disabilities ensure disability aids are available to all who need them
I have just tried to watch the video, however I can not find how to turn sub titles on. At work I can not hear, as the PC do not have a sound card.
What is the ‘access story’ for channe9?
We're working on transcripts.
'world view(s)'.
Truely inspiring... not just from a software development or acessibility perspective but this guy truly is a star! Human nature at its finest... he wants to do something, and he is doing it. He is bridging everything which holds him back... I think that EVERYONE no matter what you do, could learn from this video...
Good luck to you Kenneth, I take my hat off! Happy Coding
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