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How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

gist.github.com

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Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#21

Post by nashadelic »

smkelly wrote: post #18

Hello. I just want to say that you should reconsider iOS-based devices. I am very low vision and can use iOS perfectly well. It has both built in zooming and text-to-speech (VoiceOver). Many apps, including Audible.com, are very accessible and work well with VoiceOver. If you have an iOS device on hand, check out the Settings->General->Accessibility offering or look at this: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ios/ .…

+1 for VoiceOver. I'm not visually challenged but I find that listening to books, articles and emails makes me understand them better. I use VoiceOver+Instapaper while driving and plough through articles quickly. I use VoiceOver control to tweet these articles without looking at my phone's touch screen. It's very effective. VoiceOver also works really well with iBooks and ePub books. The pages flip automatically and the reading speed can be adjusted on the fly to match your comprehension. VoiceOver is iOS's best hidden feature.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#23

Post by nebulon »

smkelly wrote: post #18

Hello. I just want to say that you should reconsider iOS-based devices. I am very low vision and can use iOS perfectly well. It has both built in zooming and text-to-speech (VoiceOver). Many apps, including Audible.com, are very accessible and work well with VoiceOver. If you have an iOS device on hand, check out the Settings->General->Accessibility offering or look at this: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ios/ .…

Great project! That can be really useful for rooms in retirement homes being equipped with such devices.

Regarding the voice controls on either Android or iOS I can only imagine how well that would work for my grandparents, speaking a German dialect, given that even my (way less dialect) German is a hassle with voice input on either those systems.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#25

Post by gambiting »

peter303 wrote: post #17

A low-end ereader is $50 these days. They all have audio options.

Kindle is rather high end and doesn't have any audio options - or am I missing something here? The last kindle that did was the Kindle Keyboard(Kindle 3) but even then it couldn't read all books.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#26

Post by comrh »

Awesome! The fact that he is requesting music is very interesting because you have made a device much more accessible than an iPod.

Listening to the music from their youth is shown anecdotally to have a HUGE impact on people with dementia and Alzheimer’s[1]. But often iPods are too much for these people to manage, maybe a simpler device (such as yours) could be used in this space?

[1]http://musicandmemory.org/

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#27

Post by wkjagt »

peter303 wrote: post #17

A low-end ereader is $50 these days. They all have audio options.

I didn't want my grandfather to have to listen to an electronic voice. Listening to a well performed reading of a book is an experience that can't be matched by text to speech.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#28

Post by jnardiello »

Simply a great project with an astonishing outcome. The thing you did great is "UX" - or, to be more precise, lack of ux. You made a device which is perfectly accessible by your grandfather, asking him to deal with "modern" devices like smartphones would have probably resulted in an epic fail. Great work.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#29

Post by jareds »

smkelly wrote: post #18

Hello. I just want to say that you should reconsider iOS-based devices. I am very low vision and can use iOS perfectly well. It has both built in zooming and text-to-speech (VoiceOver). Many apps, including Audible.com, are very accessible and work well with VoiceOver. If you have an iOS device on hand, check out the Settings->General->Accessibility offering or look at this: https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ios/ .…

I am totally blind and am a Voiceover user. From my experiences with talking to sited iOS users while Voiceover is a great feature and makes an iPhone completely accessible it is still not as intuitive as using an iPhone with site. I was motivated to learn Voiceover because I had been using computers for my entire life. Even with being motivated it took me several weeks to get proficient. If someone has limited to no computer experience and doesn't feel like they need to learn Voiceover then the learning curve is going to most likely be to hard for them to become proficient.

Re: How I built an audio book reader for my nearly blind grandfather

#30

Post by jareds »

gambiting wrote: post #25
peter303 wrote: post #17

A low-end ereader is $50 these days. They all have audio options.

Kindle is rather high end and doesn't have any audio options - or am I missing something here? The last kindle that did was the Kindle Keyboard(Kindle 3) but even then it couldn't read all books.

I know the Kindle Fire has accessibility support and I hear it's actually quite good. I haven't personally used it though since the Kindle app on an iPhone is quite accessible.
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