- Jonathan
A personal opinion, these are the kind of ideas that should get backed by Venture Capitalists as compared to the "Yo" application.
1. Since you're targeting blind users, you may want to use a bit more ARIA on your page, particularly around the popup menu.
2. It would be nice if the main page explicitly stated that this was for IOS. I'm an Android user and had to explicitly click through to figure out it wasn't for me. IOS certainly has a larger share of blind users, but Android is popular as well.
Good luck! Any plans for an Android version? If so, and you'd like a tester who is also a developer familiar with its accessibility framework, please do let me know.
(Note: I'm neither blind nor an iOS user so I do not know how blind users use iOS. Please correct me if I am wrong.)
Here is a somewhat more entertaining video of a blind person using Instagram, also on the iPhone with VoiceOver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1e7ZCKQfMA
Here is a video from the same guy, using an app to identify objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeB0BH8rAc8&list=UUld5SlwHrX...
Basically, taping on the screen once will read to you what you just tapped, tapping twice (anywhere on the screen) will then select that. There are also gestures to navigate the different elements on the screen (mostly what you would expect, e.g. swiping forward/backward to got to the next/previous element)
I think Android has a similar screenreader by now (no idea how good it is) and I can only recommend playing around with it to get a feel for it.
I would assume taking good enough pictures is just a question of patience and practice. There is feedback (how much, if anything, was recognized?) so it’s possible to learn and get better at it.
http://www.shalinshah.me/voice/images/bg2.png
Edit: I made a 60% JPEG from this PNG that weighs in at 281KB if you want to use it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/okqij5hiubw08sz/bg2.jpg
Also somewhat weird that "Get this app" isn't centered like the rest of the content.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/80piftabnf57jwt/Screenshot%202014-...
They're a non-profit that provides volunteer-read mp3s of text books and other popular reading materials. Last I checked, they received a government grant that let them give away memberships to blind/dyslexic students.
I used to read for them - knowing thousands of people have used the thousands of pages I read to learn is really satisfying.
But still, very nice! Probably also a very useful tool for people who have dyslexia.
As a dyslexic myself, I just wanted to point out (at least for those who don't know) that dyslexia manifests itself differently in many folks, so while this may be useful for some folks who are dyslexic, it isn't for all of us (like me, for example).
- Jonathan
I wonder, is this something you yourself use? Are you blind? In which case, I'm sure you're aware that this is not how assistive software works. Sorry, I just don't get it.
That said, this isn't an entirely unique concept, and you're right, positioning the camera is challenging. There are tools to help with this--arms and stands that position devices at the correct height to photograph a standard-sized sheet of paper. It may strike you as entirely impractical, but I remember the days when scanners were huge and bulky things, and even now when they aren't, I don't necessarily have the desk space to keep one out, or the desire to hook it up and store it when not in use. A reliable camera-based OCR solution for my Android phone and an arm/paper guide calibrated to the S III would rock, and assuming reasonable material prices and standard markup (I.e. not the absolutely huge markups of AT) it'd be competitive with dedicated OCR solutions and hardware.
Source: I'm blind.
You're blind and a developer? As I noted in my comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8138937 ), I used to write software for awesome folks like you. I'd love to chat with you for a bit if you don't mind? What's your email?
Thanks!
- Jonathan
How is this different from TextDetective, or other OCR apps for the blind?
