S1E21 - From Classroom to Product Room: Roger Steinberg on Designing for Low Vision

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Hey, everybody, and
welcome to episode 21 of See

Things Differently. We
are here. We have made it.

David Woodbridge is
present and accounted for.

Now you're 21 and it's
over 18. I'll be holding my virtual class, of
course, full of orange juice.

And then we can toast 21
after we finish the podcast.

There you go. I
can't believe it.

We are already into September.
This year is just flying by.

Schools are in session.

And Yeah.

To that end, we
decided to look a little bit in-house this time and
have somebody on who we've heard from before
in some tips and tricks, but we have not had
him on to be interviewed.

He is in the hot seat. So it's my pleasure
to welcome our low vision product manager,

Roger Steinberg. He is going to give us
some amazing tips and tricks later, but. he is here. He is, or in
his past life, he was a, an inclusion classroom
teacher. So he got to work with everybody from
mainstream kids to folks who were in special education
and some low vision kids.

So being that we are
back in school now, we thought it would be very
fun to have someone on who has worked in the school environment
and now leads our low vision product. team. And we're going
to talk about all that.

But first, and Roger,
welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Rachel. David, happy to be here.
This should be fun. Looking forward to it.

As we dive in, Roger, I
mentioned one of your past lives being an
inclusion classroom teacher.

Tell us how you came to
humanware and maybe a little bit about your
career as it is up to now.

Yeah, I did about eight
years in the classroom.

And it was, again, it
was working in inclusion.

So I had kids across
the spectrum of abilities.

So it could be with seven,
eight, 10, 12 year olds.

Some would be basically
non-readers all the way through those who were
reading well above their age.

And then of course, physical and other
disabilities in between, including vision issues and those sorts of things.
But being that I was in the classroom,

I used a lot of technology with my
students. And I ended up leaving the classroom to work
for the state of Florida and worked in three
districts as well as cross district throughout
the rest of the state, identifying assistive
technology for students with disabilities and
going into the classroom to teach the teachers
and the students how to employ that technology to
lead to those students' success.

Of course, when you're doing that,
you get to go to conferences and so forth.

And that's where I met
some folks on the dark side, if you will, and left the public sector
and went to a lot of different places.

And I went to work for Kurzweil
Educational System for almost 14 years.

And over time, I left
there and migrated to a full on education company
called Curriculum Associates.

Came out of there and went
to work for BAUM USA, who many of your listeners
probably have heard of before.

And from there, I got to
know HumanWare a good bit throughout my time
at Kurzweil and with BAUM.

But the opportunity came available to
move here as the product manager for Low

Vision. And so the
rest is sort of history for the last five years. That's
what I've been up to.

You mentioned companies, BAUM USA,
Kurzweil. I remember using Kurzweil 1000.

And you, I definitely
knew some folks who absolutely loved their
VarioUltra braille displays.

David, do you have any any personal
experience with Kurzweil or BAUM yourself?

I actually got my hands
on the original Kurzweil reading machine for the
State Library in Sydney.

I want to say back in
about 1986 or something.

Maybe it's not quite that time.
I can't remember that far back.

But that was amazing.

You had this huge box and this external
keyboard and a Dektor Classic synthesizer.

And it was enormous.

And then when we got the Kurzweil K1000
PC KPR card, that was even more awesome.

And then I got to use
the Kurzweil software.

So yeah, when I look back on
those days, it's actually amazing.

Where we've actually come
from and where we're going to.

So yeah, I can't remember BAUM
exactly because they weren't sort of. quite sort of well known
over here in Australia.

But definitely Kurzweil was amazing.

Yeah, I mean, you guys
have, or I should say,

Humanware has kind of brought in a
couple of former Kurzweil employees.

And David Bradburn was selling
the Kurzweil reading machine back in the mid 80s after
he got out of high school.

And of course, he's our
VP of sales globally now.

So definitely you
have some of the brain trust from Kurzweil
working for Humanware now.

Roger, it's clear that you've had a
long standing career in education and assistive technology.

And you now have a very cool distinction
of managing our low vision portfolio.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Maybe what goes into some of the product
design and what your favorite part of. conceiving of those products is
and then getting them to market.

It's a tall task.

I think if I just started off with
what's the favorite part about it is, is just knowing that you're developing tools
that are helping individuals to achieve whatever it is they want
to achieve, whether it be in school, at home,
at work, whatever that is.

Obviously, as a past
educator, you know, I'm really big on the school
to work connection and making sure that, you know,
students come out of school prepared.

And I think most know
that those with low vision or blindness, you know, they
are chronically underemployed.

So this is just a really huge
mission that I'm a part of.

And I'm proud of being able to do that.

But, you know, how do
we come up with ideas?

It's going to conferences,
you know, going to meetings, sitting in on webinars,
listening to what's going on.

Looking at new research
that's come out about what's going on in
assistive technology and trying to identify those
things that are going to be the most useful to
that mission of allowing people to have independence
and do what they want to do.

But I think a cornerstone of what
we try to do at HumanWare is to deliver those things so that
they're as easy to use as possible.

So just lowering that barrier
to entry to technology so that it just sort of works out
of the box, if you will, with a lot of intuitive
design of not just the physical features, but also, you know,
the software that's running on these.

And I think that's a
huge, huge aspect that sometimes gets
forgotten, is that, you know, these are all devices
most of the time, you know, and they are, you know,
purpose-built, dedicated devices.

But, you know, at the
heart of them, what's making the heartbeat in them is the
software that we designed to go on to them.

And sometimes that gets forgotten.

And, you know, to be fair,
my background is more on the software side
than the hardware side.

But we've had a couple
of good successes there.

You know, the Explorer 12 came
out about three and a half years ago, hugely popular for a
12-inch tablet magnifier.

And, you know, we've got our
Reveal 16 just returned to market.

We didn't change the design.

We just updated the cameras and made a few
tweaks to the software because the design itself was solid, but the functionality
was there and, again, that ease of use.

So that's a little bit about
what we do and why I do it.

When did the first Explorer come out?

Because HumanWare has always
been so famous for the Explorer range.

Has that been about 15
years now or something?

Or was it earlier than
that or later than that?

Pushing about 12-ish, I would say,
is about the window where it's at.

And, of course, they've
grown from the 5-inch model to the 8-inch model to the 12-inch
model, which was the last one added.

So, you know, they are aligned.

They're lined up for a refresher
in the relatively near future.

And, of course, you
know, that time frame that we're talking about, a lot of
technology has changed in that window.

So, you know, we're
going to get a chance to look back at the
hardware and the software and say, okay, what can we do
that we couldn't do 10, 12 years ago?

But those things just still are just hugely
popular because of the simplicity of use.

So, you know, a five-year-old
can pick it up and use it as can.

My mother, who is 83 years
old, can pick it up and use it and figure it out on
their own for the most part.

Would you say that some
of your work at Kurzweil has helped you in your low-vision
product manager role?

I ask that because some of the low-vision
products like the Reveal 16i have OCR, and Kurzweil made a
name for itself because it allowed somebody
to scan text and read it.

You mentioned here in the
software side of things, was that something that you
helped develop and work on?

Yeah, absolutely.

Kurzweil, by the time I got there, we were
primarily dealing in software and flatbed scanners to do the
capture and the OCR and text-to-speech, but we
had the Kurzweil 1000 that was used by, we
used to just define it very simply, like if you can still use a
mouse and drive your computer with a mouse, visually, then you can
use our Kurzweil 3000 software, which was much
more education, dyslexia, learning disability,
that type of stuff.

But if you can no longer use a
mouse to navigate the screen, then the Kurzweil 1000 is
probably the answer for you.

And that was sort
of how we defined it for customers and they
could quickly understand what was the better
software. But part of the story I left out is, you
know, that 14 years I started out in
ground-level sales in Florida, moved into product
management there, and then ultimately took over
as director of customer success and was
overseeing all of the product development, as well
as the customer success initiatives at Kurzweil.
But it informs what I do to this day, without
a doubt. And, you know, you bring up the right
products, the Connect 12 and the Reveal
16i are both intelligent magnification devices.
They are dedicated to their purpose, but the
software that's on there is our prodigy software.
A lot of times they get co-mingled with
the device, but they're not necessarily the same as
the software that's on there.

And so, you know, I
think that's a good thing.

And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a
good thing. But the software is what we've developed separately now to have a Windows version of it in addition to the Android version. And a lot of what we did at Kurzweil
is reflected within that software and what we're trying to accomplish with it.

I know with the, say, for
the Evolve, for example, you know, we've moved away
from Android onto Windows, and it seems like with the
low vision stuff too, we're sort of starting to pick up that
sort of move onto Windows.

So is that, do you think that's an
overall trend in the industry in general?

It's an interesting question.

The data points are
still not a large set.

Obviously, you know, you've
got your ZoomText, your JAWS and things like that that run
in a Windows environment.

But from sort of the
hardware aspect and hardware running a Windows
operating system, right now, there's not a lot of competition.

There's not a lot of
competition in the space.

And that's why, you know,
we're looking to revamp. what we've done and move to the Windows.
And, you know, sort of the background of why Windows might not stay on Android,
or another platform for that matter, is really comes back to,
you know, my belief that in school to work, Windows is
the operating system of choice.

You, I mean, I've
had to use a Mac before at work, but I've
never had to use an Android tablet or an iPad tablet
to do my job day to day.

It's always been a Windows
PC, or on occasion, a Mac.

And I've had opportunities where I've had
to use both. But even when I had the Mac,

I was running a Windows boot system
on it so I could run Windows applications.

So, but the idea here is
like, students have to start learning that Windows
environment so that they can migrate into the workplace
where the Windows environment is what
they're most likely going to be for a lot of what
they're going to do.

And it translates to other
operating systems if they need to.

That's right. Yeah, look, we've
had the same sort of transition, chit chat, because I was
sitting back the other day looking at sort of where
we've come in the industry.

And I think we've been on a mobile platform
for almost everything in a way for the last, geez, I want to say
25 years or more, in one way or another, like
wherever it's been, you know,

Windows CE or some other
thing we've been doing in other suppliers and that sort
of stuff. But because I try to look at the stuff and
you think, well, what's new?

And I think the Windows trends definitely
new, the AI trends are extremely exciting.

And I think, you know, that's
both products for blindness and the low vision stuff.
And I'm actually very gratified to hear you
say that the Explore 5, 8, and 12, because that's
always been my favorite low vision products, is due for
refresh sometime in the future.

Because to me, it's
almost like, I don't know if you agree with this, Roger,
but it's almost the one that people almost identify,
or do you think the

Reveal and the Prodigy
software is gaining more traction these days? I
think Explore still, you know, is the lion's share
of what we do right now.

We, again, the shift from
to the Windows platform, you know, it's a
relatively new thing to do.

And so the dedicated
hardware is going to follow the software. We
got the software done ahead of time, so we've
been selling it so that individuals can install it
onto their own PCs or tablets and use a document
camera. But next up is to get those dedicated devices
that are, you know, purpose built for the
support of low vision.

And to your point about the
Evolve, you know, my counterpart,

Andrew, on the Braille side, we're having
conversations about, you know, how can we start merging our roadmaps
a little bit more closely.

And one of the
ideas that we have is really being able to think about, is
there an opportunity to help bridge the transition, if you will,
for especially students who it's recognized that
their vision is going to continue to deteriorate.
And, you know, if the

Evolve can run Prodigy,
there can be a monitor connected to it. And
that student can start learning Braille while
they're still using their vision to navigate what
they need to, but they're learning Braille so that
they can transition more smoothly into the Braille environment when
it becomes necessary. Yeah, absolutely.

Just to go back a little
bit to that, I mean, I'm sure everybody knows about
the Explore 5, 8, and 12.

Do you want to just clarify
the difference between the Reveal 16 and the
Reveal 16i for folks?

Yeah, sure. So it's
interesting that it's called the Reveal
because I think they just, when they were named,
which was before my time, it was because it's sort of
this new class that's more. of a desktop size
CCTV. So they named it.

So the Reveal 16 is a 16-inch
desktop CCTV. Functionally, it is very similar
to the Explore line.

I mean, it basically does
the types of things that the

Explore does, actually
minus a few features, but it is a nice desktop unit.
But when you talk about the 16i, you can think about the i
meaning intelligent or something like that.

And basically what it is, is that it has
a full-blown operating system under it. that you can now go off
and operate on the Internet, you know, search Google, use your AI tools,
jump on Teams, whatever you need to do.

And that is coexisting alongside
of the low vision support tools.

In our case, it's the Prodigy software
delivering that low vision support.

So it's sort of, I guess you
would call it the, you know, the second version, the
up, how would I say this?

Like you get a BMW
iClass, you know.

So it's just stepping up to that.
I want to have that intelligence to do other things
beyond just magnifying.

Do you have anything
that you want to let us know kind of what's coming in
the future for low vision?

Maybe just industry-wide
or even something that we might be doing here at HumanWare?
Yeah, I don't think it's any secret that we're seeking to
transition our Reveal 16i to the Windows
operating system as well.

So we will have a
dedicated low vision device. that will be available for those that
need it that will have that intelligence but all on the Windows operating system
instead of an Android operating system.

I think it's to predict
where we're headed.

There's a lot in the air right
now. David mentioned it earlier, like where is AI
going? What is AI doing?

You know, it's sort of
being used for everything, but is it being used well?
I think that's my biggest concern is. we've already integrated it
into the Prodigy software itself.

And I think it is going
to change low vision workflows because, you know, we were
already talking about, you know, the OCR and text-to-speech, and those
are somewhat commoditized. functionalities now. But
there's times when, why am I spending time
capturing this entire document then using text-to-speech to read it back
to figure out if I even need to interact with this document? And
AI can help out a lot with things like that. So I can
quickly say, hey, what's this document about? Think
about mail that you get every day.

And it's like, oh
yeah, this is a, you know, another flyer for a lawn service
to treat your weeds. I can quickly say,

I don't need a new lawn
service, put that in the trash.

And I didn't have to scan it in, have it
read back and then deal with deleting it or accidentally saving
it or anything like that.

I can just ask a question and move on.
So I think that's really empowering to. independence as well
as just speeding up the processes and the workflows
for those with low vision.

I think what we're
watching for very closely now is what's next
with AI in this realm.

And the area that I'm
really interested in, at least initially, is
agentic AI to help users. understand how to use a software
or an application. I'm interested in it to help them when
they're navigating out into the Windows operating
system, if they're not as as facile as other
people, then, you know, maybe we can do some
things to support that.

I do believe that AI is
going to have a role in some way, shape or form
within the explore line. in terms of potentially delivering some
OCR and text-to-speech in those smaller, more simpler devices. My concern is keeping
them simple and easy to use still, but. in terms of like the long
range, where is it going?

There's still a lot of
things for us to do. Just to in terms of developing software that is
low vision friendly on the prodigy side.

We've sort of covered right now the aspect,
educational aspects and the work aspects of being able to read stuff
and sort of Mark it up and those sorts of
things so that I can start to understand and
comprehend what I have.

But we really need to now
make the next step, which is

I've read it, I understand
it, but now my job is to output something that shows
that I know what I'm talking about.

And that's really what I'm trying to do
right now. I'm trying to make sure that I'm making sure that I know
what I'm talking about, be it a school paper or a
work product for my boss.

And so that's one of the next steps that
we'll take on the project side is probably starting to look at some
sort of word processing environment that's
simple and easy to use.

Because, you know, I don't know about you,
but Microsoft Word has many more features than I could ever use
probably in the rest of my life.

So the idea is to
nail the feature set to where it's like
everything that I need, but not more than I need.
And that's always a delicate balance in product
management. One thing that's always intrigued me by
AI and this will be useful for me as a blind person,
but also for low vision, but I just wish somehow we
could have a device that had AI.

And you said to me, look, sorry, you said
to me, look, I'm looking for a specific yoghurt on this
shelf in this shop.

I know I'm in the yoghurt
section, but I want you to tell me exactly where the
yoghurt is that I want.

Is it the third one from the left?
Is it the second row down down?

And I just think,
wouldn't it be cool?

And, you know, I know we're
doing stuff with Ray-Bans with other stuff that
we're doing, but I reckon that type of stuff, or
even if you had like a portable, like an Explore 5 that you could
have in your hand when you were shopping, that type of AI stuff
to identify that material or taking a thing out of
Apple's book and do the point and click. So if
I end up at a terminal that I've actually got
to put in my pin number, having an AI system
that says, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going
to be able to see when your fingers obscuring
the number one, two, three, or four or five,
I'll let you know in your headphone when you've, you
can hit that button and so on.

So that's the type
of sort of practical AI that I can really see us
getting highly involved in that.

It's a, it's a practical
way of interacting with the environment,
you know, on an, on an everyday basis or
for low vision people.

What's, you know, I can't,
maybe I can't see the indicator sign on the railway
station for the next train that's coming in. So
again, asking the AI to specifically look for
the, the ID indicator and let me know what the
next train is going on.

That sort of stuff for
me too, I think really has societal implications
as well. So, um, cause I think sometimes, you
know, it's great to talk about

AI and, you know,
summarizing stuff and everything else, but I sort of, my
idea of AI is to interact with the world at large
as much as possible.

And I think that's, I think
that's really important.

Yeah. I think that's, I think
that's really important.

I think that's really important.

I think that's really important.
I think that's really important.

I think that's really important.

I think there are a lot of
things out there that in people fly vision are just still
not accessible. I mean, people squint and they try and change their
glasses around and they still can't say so.

Yeah. To me would be
really interesting as well.

No, that's exactly, I
think what I was trying to get across is, you know, these practical
applications are, are what are really necessary. There's a lot
of really mind bending things that we can do
with it, but those are really nice practical examples of
how we should be thinking about AI.

Um, development, uh, within
the sphere that we influence.

I mean, just the, the grocery store map
in and of itself, you know, these grocery stores nowadays,
everything is computerized.

They know where every
product is in the store.

So you said the word
societal, I'm like, you know, if everybody would get
on board and realize, you know, there's no reason
you can't be sharing the store map of where
everything is, you know, rather than the large language
model, trying to look at the whole thing and figure
out what it is, you know, we can, we, those, those
maps could be preloaded.

You know, if everybody
works together and that's, that's, uh, I guess, you
know, I may be a dreamer, but that's, that's,
that's, that's the kind of dream that you
want to see in the future.

Right. But, um, but in the near
term, we can do those things you said.

Is it my imagination or is low vision
stuff a little bit, it's not slow to move, but it's almost because
the stuff does so well in the beginning, cause
it was so well designed. that trying to find sort
of new whiz bang things to, you know, promote or, you know, write,
raise up in the sky and say, look at this fantastic thing. Cause
it just seems the low vision one is, it's just
very slow to move in the industry sometimes.
Or am I imagining that?

I think that's a fair assessment.
I do believe that, you know, you find something that works and you're
going to try to use it as long as you can.

That's sort of both practical, practical
thing, but also a business thing.

Um, but I, I, I do think that
we could move more quickly and what we're trying
to get done, um, in the marketplace, uh, in
general, but as you say, you know, trying to figure out
what's next when you've got stuff that really is
working well is a little bit tricky.

And, um, I will just say the market itself
is a very interesting market because you have some fully subsidized
markets like education, rehabilitation, things
like this. And then we have a lot of, uh, a burgeoning
senior group, you know, those people that are
over 65. Um, and it's, there's actually a split
in that group, right?

You have young retirees who've
had technology throughout the balance, you know, at
least the latter years of their career, if not the
balance of their career.

But then you have people
like my mom who, you know, basically learn how to
use a typewriter, you know?

Uh, so it's a completely
different realm for her, but I will say this, when
you get outside of those places where it's funded
and you have support like a teacher or a rehab
counselor or something like that, there's a lot less,
um, speaking up about. what do I need? What do
I need my devices to do?

And so forth. The voice
of customer outside of getting it from counselors
and TV eyes is far lower than what you get
with the braille community.

The braille community
is very vocal.

They know what they want,
they know what they need, and they communicate with one another.
And the low vision community is so varied.

There's not like, oh, well, we're all like,
because you, you, you guys know this, but you know, you can be
considered blind and still have some visions. A lot of
people don't know this, right?

Right. But, um, when
you go from that to, okay, my vision is
degraded to where glasses aren't working anymore,
but I'm not considered legally blind yet. I mean, there's a wide
swath of what low vision is considered.

Um, so it's, it's interesting
to try and develop sort of,

I guess you would say down the middle
so you can meet all those disparate needs.

Hey everybody, and welcome
to the Hot Topic segment where we are back and
ready to have a fun discussion. about a topic that I
think a lot of our listeners will know a lot about, or
maybe have some thoughts of their own about.
And if you do, of course, email us anytime,
[email protected].

David and I want to
talk about using a note taker to do college
or university level work.

I can start off by saying
that when I went through university, I had a note
taker and I did use it for taking notes, but I
didn't use it of course, for doing research and
writing papers because

I had a laptop to, um,
make sure I had all that formatting stuff done and
footnotes and end notes and margins and double
spacing. So I was using kind of a hybrid approach,
but I couldn't have completed university
without that set up.

Uh, the braille was
essential to study and make sure that I understood the information. And
then the computer with the screen reader was the other piece that allowed me to
complete papers and emails and PowerPoints and all of those good
things. So my thoughts on this are a note taker
can be useful, or I guess in today's day and
age, a braille display, uh, either with a QWERTY
keyboard or a braille keyboard, and then a
laptop to do that, the heavy lifting, or I would say
even an Evolve at this point.

But that's, that's what I would
say is you need those kinds of two pieces of technology, maybe even
one, if we're talking about the Evolve.

David, what do you think?
What are your thoughts and experiences?

I sort of grew up in the sort of the long
time span of note takers. So I went from, uh, dare I say it, my
beloved Perkins Brailler, um, when I first went
through high school and then through university, uh, I used
like tape recorders. And then later on, um, I went through
like talking note takers and then talking note
takers that also had a braille display in them. So when I think
of note takers, I think of both, you know, purely speech output
note takers, and also braille note takers that have also
got speech in them or not.

And what I always come
up with, and I always think about my original
braille and speak classic.

Wow. Yeah.

I know.
I love my braille and speak classic.

Me too.

Where it was my scratch pad, my
thought pad, my whatever thing.

So any type of
thought that I had, went into my braille and
speak. So if I was doing research or, you know,
somebody gave me some more information, that was
my little pocket journal that I always stuck stuff
into. And then when I came to, you know, write
stuff on the computer and do other stuff, that
was where I got my source material from originally was
my, my braille and speak classic.

And that to me is
where, and again, yes, you're right. Besides
the evolve, although we probably will never do
this, but I I'd love to have an evolve that only had
speech output and no braille display in it. You
probably went around,

I don't think much when
we had the voice note.

I do remember the voice note.

You remember the voice note?

Yeah.

Yeah. So that was,
that was no note taker.

That was no note taker.
That was a note taker without a braille display. That's
what I want to get to.

So it was awesome. And
of course having no braille display, it actually
kept the price down.

But again, you know,
it, it, it's a note taker and

I always stress this point
and that's why we are so heavily saying with the
evolve in particular, it's a braille computer. It's
not a note taker because yes, I can take quote
notes on it, but I can also use it as a full fledged
windows braille based talking computer. And
I shudder when I come across people even today
at university level who proudly tell me that
they're using their X, Y, Z note taker to do
all their uni work.

And I am completely
gobsmacked because it's like, how, do you even manage to
put in your assignments in the appropriate format?
How do you go about accessing a particular
software applications that will only run on windows or
a Mac and that sort of stuff?

And I, I sometimes have this feeling sometimes
that people put up their own barriers with technology to
say, oh, I use this device.

So it's not compatible
with those devices that the uni uni use,
therefore I can't do it.

So therefore I'll just keep using
my note taker and you guys have to do all the work
to make it work for me.

That's not an effective
way to go on because particularly when, you
know, most people know these days that, you know,
windows is fully accessible.

Macs are fully accessible.

Um, you can run whatever
screen reader you like on, on, on windows and then your
note taker then becomes an adjunct to that
process. Um, you know, and

I think that's, that's
a really good point.

And I think that's, I think
that's a really good point.

Going on from that a
little bit. I mean, one of the reasons why I, you
know, like the evolve is. because I can, you know,
I can, I can use my iPhone or my iPad as my quote
note taker. Uh, and then, you know, one via one
drive, dropbox, Google drive, iCloud, it appears on my
computer. So I just think it's really important these
days to not get trapped into the quote note taker
environment because it really puts up too many
barriers. And when you've got people trying to assist
you in both employment and education, the less
barriers that those people have to deal with, um,
then that's beneficial for, for both parties. I, I, you know, if I
can, if I can say to somebody, look, just give me a word
document and I can read it.

Or, um, can you just
use AI to strip out all the. tables and underlines and everything?
That's cause it's a print document.

Nice and straightforward.
But if I'm going to say, turn around the people
and say, oh no, look,

I can't access that. So can
you put it into this format?

Then can you put it on
an SD card or a USB stick?

And then I'll actually be able to access
it. And then when I give you my stuff back, you'll have to also get it off
the USB stick or the SD card.

You'll probably have to convert it to a
proper better format, and then you can read it on your computer,
wherever it's Windows or Mac.

So it just becomes
really, really messy.

So I guess my bottom
line is the tools are there.

No takers and no takers, uh, desktops
and laptops and desktops and laptops, and use the operating
system that you really should be using. And
then as Roger said, uh, we really should be
using, you know, Windows to do Windows things, both
in education and employment.

The, the, the note takers to me back
in, and I'm talking about 30 years ago, they were in some
ways, a bit of a stop gap measure to, you know,
even recently make us, you know, uh, productive and
efficient and everything else.

But the technology's
moved on so much that, like

I said, it's, it's your pen
and paper to scribble down things really, really
quickly when you need to. And then you go back
to your main computer.

I'd love to hear from the listeners, David
and I both would. What did you use if you. went through college
or have a job that taking down a lot of information
is something that, that you do on a regular basis?
We'd love to hear from you.

What do you use?
How do you use it?

Do you find using one
device to take notes and then like David said, put it
in cloud storage and. within an instant it's on your computer
so you can work with it in that way.

So that's something that
we're always curious about is your input methods.
And I'm just so glad that we have choice and
we have tools to allow us to be competitive in
employment, in education, in life.

There's technology
that's available now that wasn't 30 years ago.
And I think we should do our best to take advantage of it.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to Partner

Corner for episode 21,
where we are lucky enough to chat with distributors or others who
have partnered with HumanWare in some way.

And this month we are
heading all the way to Sweden.

I am so excited to speak
with Patrick Johansen, who is from PolarPrint and they
are our partner in that area of the world. So Patrick, welcome
to the podcast. Thank you very much.

Tell us, Patrick, a little bit about you
and how you came to partner with HumanWare.

I work in PolarPrint since 1999. And
I'm actually, I'm visually impaired myself, and I've studied computer
science at a university in Umeå in North Sweden.
So at school, I already. used devices from PolarPrint.
So that's why Stefan, who was the owner of
the company at that time, called me and asked if I wanted to start to
work for him. That was how it began for me to come to the company.
So something that you had used in school,
you obviously caught the attention of the owner
and he said, Hey, we've got to have Patrick on our team.
And you said, Yes, we do.

Yeah, that's right. And then we
started up a new office here in Umeå in.

North Sweden.
So I was at that office from the beginning.

So you've been with PolarPrint
quite a long time. And I know our.

Stellar Trek and
VictorStream and Ray-Ban

Metaglass' product
manager, Matthew Paquette, had the chance to meet
you when he was in Europe a few years ago. Is that
how you got connected?

Connected with Humanware?

Actually, I've been connected
with Humanware a bit before that.

I've been in contact
with Dominic. for a really long time. And I've
worked with translation, localization. of different products, the brain displays,
the Daisy players, that kind of stuff.

So I've been in touch with
you for a really long time.

We were quite early with
Daisy players in Sweden.

Actually, the development of Daisy started
in Sweden in the beginning, in the 90s.

Tell me a little more about that.
You've mentioned Daisy players.

That's something, of course, as you
know, Humanware has been involved with for quite a long time with
the Stratus players and the VictorStream and
so on. What was your first experience with a
Daisy player yourself?

When I was in school, I didn't
use Daisy player that much because.

I'm a braille reader
and I used braille books most of the time. Also,
because I was studying. computer science and
mathematics, it was really good to have that in
braille. So at school, I didn't use Daisy player
that much. But when I was in school, I didn't use
Daisy player that much.

But when I began to
work at PolarPrint, we were very big Daisy players in
Sweden. So then I worked quite a lot with the
devices. I think Daisy has, like you said, come quite
a long way. It was used. early on. And I think
in books is where we've seen it really stand out
because it allows that navigation, that
regular text just doesn't.

Yeah. And here in Sweden,
we have also Daisy online so you can download
books from the library. And. we have also been
quite involved in digital talking newspapers, which
are downloaded from. from the Internet. So, yeah, I think
it's been a really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

That is very, very, very big in Sweden.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

That is very, very,
very big in Sweden.

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

That is very, very,
very big in Sweden.

Do you see a lot of users utilizing the
Stratus players to download their content?

Yeah, I think it's been a
really good experience.

That is very, very,
very big in Sweden.

It's a big thing. It's
coming, still coming.

But we work with MTN, a
government department in Sweden, and we work with digital technology.
Yeah, I think it's been a really good experience. Yeah, I think
it's been a really good experience.

We work with digital
talking newspapers.

So we install Stratus players
around the whole country. when somebody cannot
read ordinary newspaper longer because losing
sight, they can get a

Stratus player, and we can come and install
the player and train them to use it. And. we also have a help desk
with four employees that can answer phone calls.
If the subscriber of a newspaper gets in trouble,
they can call the help desk and get help with
the newspaper. So this is. really big. We have
around 2,500 subscribers of talking newspapers
around the country.

It's important to be informed.
It's important to be heard.

It's important to be heard.
It's important to be heard.

It's important to be heard.

It's important to be
heard. It's important to be informed about what's going
on in the world and locally.

And of course,
newspapers provide sports and advertisements and
all kinds of information.

So I love it that this
is something that you, along with your
colleagues at PolarPrint, are making sure that
people have access to.

Patrick, what would you
say is your favorite part of working at PolarPrint?
I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.
I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.

I've worked a lot with scripting in JAWS.
That is maybe, what should I say?
That is interesting.

And when it comes to
workplaces, you can get it possible. for somebody to work in an application,
an application that was not accessible. before.
So that is really something that can help.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.
I think that's a really good point.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

Yes, agreed. I've known
some JAWS scripters.

And even now we're seeing
with NVDA and people building add-ons for it to make
things accessible that previously weren't.

So it's a very neat era
we're in. And I'm so glad we have partners like
PolarPrint in Sweden to. continue our mission and to help
make the world a more accessible place.

Patrick, thank you so
much for coming on and spending a few minutes
talking about PolarPrint and what you guys do in
Sweden. I think it's excellent.

And just keep up the
awesome work that you're doing.

Thank you very much.

Hello again, this is Roger, the low vision
product manager here at Humanware.

And in this tips and tricks
segment, I'm actually going to sneak away and give you a rundown of
what's new in Prodigy software version 1.7.

This release is really
about flexibility with the software about how you touch it, how
you interact with it, and what you do with captures and how you
learn to use the software.

So that's what I'm going to cover for
you in this quick rundown of new features.

So the first thing that
I want to show you is a quick example of the
new annotation tools.

So I'll walk you through here, but
we've added tools that allow you to. insert markup onto
images, documents, and so forth from four different
applications within

Prodigy, the magnifier,
the distance application, the books application,
and the files where you've. saved documents to.
There is a selector tool, which runs your mouse.
There's pencil or pencil or pen marking tool, a
highlighter tool, as well as an eraser tool in
case a mistake is made.

All of these have keyboard
shortcuts assigned to them, as well as the
standard Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y for different functions. These
annotations are saved with the document.
They follow it if you rotate the document, and if you
export the document, they will follow with it there.
So they become a part of the document
forever at that point.

So these can be used for real
world things like highlighting a phone number on a printed form or circling
an account number on a piece of mail.

I'm going to demonstrate
an example for you right now.

So let me go in carousel
magnifier. I'm going to navigate. arrow keys through my
carousel. And I'm going to go into my files. So I
have a document here, multiple choice in psychology.
I'm going to click to open that.

So this is a saved multiple choice quiz
type document that I may have received from an instructor, and it has
several questions onto it. Let's just read one
so that you can hear it.

A confidence be optimism. See
mood swings de-self concept.

I'll tap pause so you
can see that it's being read aloud there. Now
what we've done in this release is in the bottom
toolbar, we've added a pencil with a
squiggly line under it.

That's the tool that
activates my annotation tools.

I'll click on that now.
Mouse button selected.

This changes my interface and
in the upper left corner of the screen, my annotation
tools appear.

And the very first item to the top
of that toolbar is the selector tool.

And I'm going to go
ahead and click on that.

So I'm going to go
ahead and click on that.

And I'm going to go
ahead and click on that.

So I'm going to go
ahead and click on that.

So I'm going to go
ahead and click on that.

So I'm going to go ahead and
click on that. So I'm going to go ahead and click on that.
So I'm going to go ahead and click on that. So
I'm going to click on that.

There are four tools
underneath it, which I'll navigate through now using
my arrow key pen button. highlighter button eraser
button. So I was tapping down and I'm going to
go back up to my pencil highlight pen button.
And with that selected, I am going to go ahead
and select an answer to the question that was just
read aloud. So I'm going to

Mark on my, my, uh, document and circle the
answer pen button selected self-concept.

And I could continue
on with circling or highlighting the correct answer, whatever
my instructor might've asked me to do.

Now in the bottom toolbar,
that has also been reconfigured and it includes several options there
as well. So let me just go through those.

Color menu, 14 items, black checked
view page editing mode, color button.

I've navigated back out,
but you heard there that there's 14 color
options for the pen.

Those same options exist for
the highlighter tool width button.

I can select the width
of my pen with menu. five items, very thin
checked. And it ranges in thickness from very
thin up to very wide.

I'll tap the back button
again in the upper left to come back to the document
view view page editing mode width button.
Okay. And then there are another button to the
right of it. Undo button.

There's an undo button.
Redo button disabled.

A redo button. It's disabled right
now because I haven't erased anything.

And then the last button on
the far right of my toolbar is.

Save button.

The save button. So I can
save these to my document.

And if that is something
that you would use similar to a word
document where, uh, you want to save your work in case
you're afraid your system is going to crash or
something's going to happen, you're going to lose your
work. You could save it while you're in process
there. Um, in the lower left of the main toolbar at the
bottom of the screen, I can back out of my document
now by clicking the back arrow.

Would you like to
save pending changes?

Menu three items save.
And just like a word document, I'm going to
be prompted before I leave to save anything that has not been saved
already. So I have the options of save, don't save or cancel to continue
working on my document.

I'll just click on
save right now.

View page toolbox button.
So as you can see, I've now saved my document.
It has that markup into it.

And I'm going to go ahead and save. And
a second new feature added to this update, version 1.7 is a new speech mode.
So let's explore that very quickly.

Magnifier.

I've entered into my carousel.
I'm going to let it voice for you.

Help.

I've tapped my left arrow to
move through my carousel.

Settings.

I'm going to enter into the settings
for Prodigy right now by clicking onto it.

Settings menu six items.

User interface sub audio sub menu.

So let's go into audio sub.

Audio menu three items.
Speech on direct touch screen sub menu.

Let's click on that.

Speech menu four items on
direct touch screen checked.

So let me just talk about this. This is the
new speech mode that we've implemented.

And this is one that was requested
by some customers who have usable low vision and had been
using our speech on mode previously.

And they found it to be confusing.

And the reason that it was confusing
to them is that they liked having things voiced out on the screen for
them, but in the speech on mode, whatever was in my locator on the
screen, wherever I would tap or click, whatever was in the locator is
what would activate for that user.

And they had enough usable
vision that using a touch screen, they wanted to go and
tap on something else.

They were using the audio to
orientate themselves to the screen, but they had enough vision to go, okay, I
want to be back over on that and tap on it.

And what they were tapping on
is what they wanted to activate.

But in the old mode, it was activating what was in
the locator, possibly to the right.

So this mode on direct touch screen
allows me to use voice over to tell me what the different
items are onto the screen.

But I can always tap
whatever I want to activate.

That is on direct touch screen.

Beneath that on alternative access, we've renamed the previous
mode to on alternative access.

And this is much more useful for
someone that may be using switch access or doesn't have the physical ability
to specifically target what it is that they want to tap on, be it physical in terms of
touching the screen or from their eyesight, being able to see exactly
what they want to get.

And in this mode, again, once you've navigated to something
on the screen, wherever you tap or click, it's going to activate
what's in your locator.

So this is something that I think
folks should go ahead and test out and get a sense for how
these two different modes work.

And hopefully they're going
to be very useful because again, it came directly from customers
asking for this direct touch screen mode.

I've also had a specific request.

This might be considered a tip about
NVDA and JAWS reading with Prodigy.

Basically, you must choose one or the
other when you are working with Prodigy.

So as you've heard, Prodigy can voice
over what I'm doing on the screen here.

If I want to use NVDA or JAWS,

I need to go into
Prodigy and select off off.

And this will turn off Prodigy
from a speech perspective and will then use your third party
speech tools for reading within Prodigy.

Prodigy does not
read other applications.

So there is the option that
Prodigy will prompt you if it notices that you have
another speech engine turned on and you get to choose which
one you want to use as well.

So that is something to think about.

It was requested that we cover that today.

So that we'll consider
that checked off the list.

A third major update in Prodigy
version 1.7 is a new calculator tool.

Let's navigate to that.

Magnifier.

I'll use my left arrow
to get there quickly.

Help.

Settings.

Calculator.

So the calculator tool is on by default and
it lives right within the carousel itself.

Let's click on calculator.

Calculator.

Expression display.

So I'm immediately orientated to it.

I can use my tab.

Result display.

Seven button.

Eight button.

Nine button.

Six button.

I'm going to hit enter.

Equals.

Six.

Times six equals 36.

So you can see that it's voiced over there.

It is a basic calculator.

So it's going to do basic
functions like addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division.

You can have numbers
that are positive, negative, and work in percentages
and things of this nature.

And there are some basic
settings that you can adjust.

There's a gear wheel in the upper
left of the interface that I'll tap on now.

Settings menu.

One item.

Grid.

Green.

Submenu.

Grid menu.

Eight items.

Green.

Checked.

Purple.

Checked.

Settings menu.

Closing menu.

View.

Calculator. 36.

Expression display.

Okay.

So we're back in the
main calculator interface and you heard as I went
through the one setting that's available and
that is to change your grid color, I changed
it from green to purple and that's surrounding the keys in
the interface of the calculator right now.

This is the first step.

We will be adding
additional calculators in the future but it is right
there at your fingertips.

So there is no need to
exit out and go to Windows and use the calculator
that is there or any other

Windows application
that has a basic calculator tool as it now resides
directly within Prodigy.

Now there are a couple of other
small usability wins in Prodigy.

The two finger tap now
opens the action menu when you're looking at say a
document and a one finger tap on the button and it will give you a
quick-spoken description of what you're on.

So it's a much cleaner split between those
two functionalities than we had previously.

Shift F10 will get you the context menu
and it now works everywhere in Prodigy, not just within the files application.

Both of these new
usability functionalities as well as all of the key
shortcuts for annotation tools and so forth
are included in our accessibility document
that is on the support page.

Now another big area that
we updated with this is that. is in the support materials
to make it easier to use.

So first we started with the quick start
guide which we reworked it almost entirely for the three possible starting
points for Prodigy to set up a device.

So there is an individual
activation path to follow, an organizational
path for activating a seat within an organization,
and then there is an existing owner orientation
to the quick start as well.

So those are the three modes of
starting the software on different devices.

So it really highlights those
and walks the user directly through the different
paths that they could use to activate the software. Second is
the user guide itself has been rewritten top to bottom. It's structured now so you
can jump straight to the section you need.

It's in two versions. It is a
text only version and a second with interface
images and so forth.

So it's now much more
easy to use if it's a counselor or a TVI who maybe is
using a screen reader.

That text only version just walks them
through what needs to be done there.

These are available in English and French
as well but it really does start off with here's the basics and
then the user or the reader can jump to where they want
to dig deeper into Prodigy.

So it's much more
user friendly in that way.

Additionally we've created
six new YouTube videos.

They cover the speech
modes that I covered here, the calculator,
and then there is a video for the annotation tools
within each of the apps in which it's applied. I
demonstrated it in files here but it also functions
and captures from the magnifier and distance as
well as for downloaded books.

The goal here wasn't just to document what
was changed. It was to make sure that the person teaching someone
or reading this knows how to use Prodigy and
can get to what they need quickly and easily.
So with regards to this update, users are notified automatically
within a seven day period that version 1. 7 is ready but they can always
manually check for updates in the settings in system software update
functionality and all of their existing files will carry over. No
settings get changed.

Nothing is wiped from
this the system for the app.

None of this requires
you to relearn how to use Prodigy on your
device. It's just Prodigy getting more precise
about the choices that it gives you and the
features that it provides to support your use from
a day-to-day perspective.

I hope these are helpful
to you and please give us feedback on how we can continue to
improve features and functions in Prodigy.

Hey everybody and welcome
to the upcoming shows segment.

You can find us in the
following places. September 18th through the 20th, we
will be at the NFB State

Convention in Greensboro, North Carolina.
September 22nd, Sight Village North Wales at the Arena in
Flandernow. September 23rd through 26th, the Trade
Fair for Rehabilitation,

Prevention, Inclusion and Care
in Dusseldorf, Messe, Germany.

September 25th, the NC Council for the Blind and State Convention
in Charlotte, North Carolina.

September 28th through October 1st,
the International Council for the Education of People with Visual
Impairment Conference in

Johannesburg, South Africa.
September 30th, Aiming for Success Conference
in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

October 9th through the
11th, the NFB Convention in Jacksonville, Florida.
October 14th and 15th,

Georgia Vision Educators
Statewide Training

Conference in Macon,
Georgia. If you are in any of those places, please stop
by and say hello to our staff.

We'd love to talk with you.

If you have comments or
suggestions, please post them in the comments section of
this video. If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
Please send them to [email protected].

Thanks so much for listening to See Things
Differently. We'll see you next month.