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Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

shalinshah.me

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Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#21

Post by jonathanmarvens »

As someone who used to exclusively write software for the visually impaired at Ai Squared (I wrote a huge portion of http://sitecues.com during my time there), I wanna thank Shalin for building this. There are VERY few developers (in fact, non-developers, too) out there who understand the needs of that audience. We all take that stuff for granted, but to a blind person, this type of software means so much to them. I remember going to the CSUN Conference last year and meeting a bunch of amazing folks who were blind and seeing them use our software ... I was in a happy mood for weeks after that experience. Please continue building software like this. Please. Much respect, Shalin. You're awesome, man.

- Jonathan

Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#23

Post by gugol »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #18

When I first opened the site there the main graphic loaded really slowly. Its a 2.1 MB PNG; you may want to change it to JPEG since it'll be way smaller and look just the same (especially since its a photo to begin with). 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 wei…

May I ask which program did you use?

Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#24

Post by jonathanmarvens »

ndarilek wrote: post #20
eglover wrote: post #8

Why choose this over audio-books and advanced TTS software? As qrazhan noted, it's very difficult (unnecessarily so) to use in the first place. (ie. electronics are already the way to go, why would you care about print versions vs. digital versions if you're blind? they all sound the same). 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…

Not everything is available digitally--mail, for instance. Sure, given the choice, I'd choose an existing digital book over one I scan myself, but I can't for instance choose a digital version of the medical bills the hospital mails me. 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…

Hi, Nolan.

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

Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#25

Post by jonathanmarvens »

matthijs_ wrote: post #22

Great product, English works great. I also tried it out on Dutch text, but that didn't work so well of course. But still, very nice! Probably also a very useful tool for people who have dyslexia.

Hi, Matthijs.

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

Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#26

Post by arrrg »

qrazhan wrote: post #6

My initial impression of this app is that it's a cool demo of OCR technology, but I'm not sure how useful it would actually be to blind people. How would they know if they are taking a good enough picture of the text in the first place? How do they even hit the button? I could see using one of the hardware buttons as a shutter could work, but I don't know if you can do that in iOS. (Note: I'm neither blind nor an iOS…

Using apps is no problem (if devs don’t ignore accessibility). iOS comes with a screenreader (VoiceOver) and all the default apps are accessible. Here is a (somewhat boring) walkthrough of the Camera app using VoiceOver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVDojENUGw0

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.

Re: Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

#28

Post by eglover »

ndarilek wrote: post #20
eglover wrote: post #8

Why choose this over audio-books and advanced TTS software? As qrazhan noted, it's very difficult (unnecessarily so) to use in the first place. (ie. electronics are already the way to go, why would you care about print versions vs. digital versions if you're blind? they all sound the same). 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…

Not everything is available digitally--mail, for instance. Sure, given the choice, I'd choose an existing digital book over one I scan myself, but I can't for instance choose a digital version of the medical bills the hospital mails me. 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…

What kind of hospital (or anyone who sells mail for that matter) doesn't use email? It's recognized as both safer and cheaper. Snail mail through USPS is pretty archaic.
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