... I am extremely impressed by Apple.
They have done a great job of making their products accessible to people with disabilities. My sister is a die-hard mac-o-phile, and consistently puts down my PC and defends her Mac's honor to the grave. I remember near the beginning of the semester in CEP class, when Ira and Sara were showing us many of the useful accessibility features Firefox offers--for free. Ira mentioned that most of these features are capable on a Mac as well, but that separately they would cost several hundred dollars.
I mentioned to my sister that while her cool, awesome, totally righteous Macbook Air may fit her needs perfectly, there are many features and programs for differently-abled people that PCs offer for free. Ha! I thought I had her cornered! She started at me as if I were an alien. She immediately navigated me to the Universal Access panel, and looked very triumphant. I was honestly very impressed.
The options themselves were very simple to read and understand. They used very straight-forward language, directly asking the user what it would like assistance with. The number of general options, such as zoom, high contrast, text-to-speech, keyboard shortcuts, etc, were generous, but those were just the basics.
I'm starting to think I misheard or misunderstood Ira way back then.
The advanced programs included such awesome technology as Voiceover, a program designed for the visually impaired, which allows the user to swipe/flick their finger across the screen and hear what items they are rolling over. So, after many uses, the user starts to feel comfortable with distances and strength necessary to navigate to particular parts of whatever they're viewing on the screen. Very cool!
Equally cool is Inkwell, designed for those with trouble using the keyboard, which allows one to connect a tablet to their Mac and write directly on it. The written words are converted into text right there on the screen. Let me tell you, I destroyed my own laptop's keyboard with coffee, and using Windows' on-screen keyboard was torture. Their speech-to-text feature was also severely lacking. But inkwell is something I could definitely get used to!
So, I decided that my new fondness for Apple and genuine appreciation of their dedication to helping the differently-abled warranted a little more research and discussion. I scrapped my original final project idea in favor of one advertising the benefits of Mac for all students, specifically those with disabilities, and the teachers who teach them as well. Enjoy!
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