From windowscentral.com
How Microsoft's inclusion mission is helping the blind to 'see'
Jason Ward
There about 253 million people who live with some degree of visual
impairment. Microsoft wants to embrace them with its products and
represent them in its workforce.
Sight is probably the most valued of our five senses. Age inevitably
begins robbing most of us of its acuity forcing our dependence on
corrective lenses. Those born blind or lose their sight are often
resigned to the loss of the benefits it imparts.
Finding employment can often be a challenge for someone with a visual
impairment. Less qualified sighted people may be hired for a position
though a person with a visual impairment could also do the job and is
better qualified. Access to commonly used technology may also be out of
reach. Historically, technology has not been purposefully engineered to
include all individuals of varying abilities.
Microsoft seeks to address both employment and product design issues
with a deep and broad mission of inclusion:
The Design team gathered insights around the true meaning of universal
design that is intentionally inclusive of people with disabilities from
the beginning.
How fathering a son with disabilities helped Microsoft's CEO transform
the company
Microsoft's Autism Hiring Program aims to attract diverse talent
How Microsoft used tech to help people with ALS regain mobility
Seeing the needs of the blind
Saquib Shaikh, is blind but demonstrates using a screen reader to write
code.
Individuals who are blind rely on hearing, touch, taste and smell to
perceive what others can see and react to via sight. Naturally, these
other senses are unable to perceive things like facial expressions,
printed text, or certain activities. Navigating a PC, social
interactions and the broader environment are therefore a challenge for
the visually impaired.
Ease of access options in Widows such as a magnifier, narrator and high
contrast mode are helpful to the visually impaired. It's inspiring to
see just how powerful these tools can be. Saquib Shaikh, a software
engineer at Microsoft who is also blind, uses screen reader technology
in Visual Studio to help him code just as proficiently and creatively as
a sighted person. It's impressive that Shaikh's screen reader narrates
at a pace sighted people can't keep up with, but that his trained ears
are attuned to.
Imagine the resource that would have been lost to Microsoft if the
company bypassed Shaikh because he is blind, or if Windows was not
designed to be inclusive. Even more impressive is Shaikh's creativity as
reflected in his use of AI to create powerful technology to help the
visually impaired "see" the world.
Seeing AI
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella introduced Shaikh during the company's 2015
Build Developers Conference. Shaikh introduced his unique application of
Microsoft's Cognitive Services. He created a program that uses
artificial intelligence to "see" the world via a pair of glasses. That
information is then conveyed to the wearer via voice.
The technology was proven able to recognize facial expressions, gender,
age, what someone is doing and even read printed text. It's amazing that
a blind man used Microsoft's technology to bring the benefits of sight
to the blind. This technology eventually became the "Seeing AI" app
which is currently available in the App Store.
A blind man used tech to bring some of the benefits of sight to the blind.
The benefits of inclusion bring a perspective and passion to a team that
helps to foster innovation that might otherwise be missed. Saikhs'
position, accomplishments and contributions to the needs of others
proves inclusion must be an end-to-end mission. Representatives of the
market served must be part of the teams serving the market. This brings
perspectives and empathy to the team that others may otherwise be blind to.
Making experiences, not just technology, accessible
Amos Miller, is a Microsoft employee with a visual impairment. He says
working at Microsoft is like working in a toy store. He goes on to share
how technology's role is to support making a person's experiences
accessible:
Accessibility is no longer...about is the screen accessible or how you
interact with the device. It's going to be about is your experience with
the environment around you, and tee people that you're with, and the
stuff, you do accessible when its supported with technology?
If we understand the goal is making experiences accessible, not just
enabling the interactions with things, we will be more empathetic
towards the needs and challenges others face. We will then work to
provide the means to enable those experiences.
The key is getting everyone onboard…
Just as the civil rights movement could not have succeeded without the
support of those not directly affected by bigotry, a company's inclusion
mission can't succeed without the support of people without a disability.
We can all contribute to ensuring people of varying abilities are
included in the range of experiences available to all of us. It begins
with acknowledging the value we all inherently possess. When we embrace
that, we are more sensitive to when there are barriers preventing people
from accessing experiences.
Empathy has a way of opening our eyes.
--
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com