Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:38 Where we bring you insights in to ideas about and discussion on disability topics. I am Charlene doll sitting in for Sam today. We were talking to Matt Ader from this bar, which is a very interesting company. Hi Matt. And thank you for joining us this evening.
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Thank you. Um, I look forward to talking to you and sharing all about, um, what despair was up today.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 Yeah. Let's just start out. Who is this barrel? Uh,
Speaker 2 00:01:13 It's a great question. It's kind of a loaded one, right? So, um, you know, for many years, um, people knew about companies like freedom scientific, optic, enhanced vision in the past yellow group, which are the four companies that make up the, the Sparrow family. Um, and I think that there's a lot of confusion on have these other companies gone away and the answer is no. Um, the Sparrow is really more of a holding company. It's a, it's a place where, um, shared services across all the different brands can exist, but when it comes to what we deliver to our customers is really those four brands. And we can go through and explain how they, those all interconnect, but the, you know, there's, there's been a lot of confusion in the industry that, you know, freedom scientific went away or optic went away or, you know, the people who do those things that you've known for these many years, um, are doing their things. And they are, it's all the same people that were doing them before. They just, um, sometimes use a shared name called the Sparrow because they're representing more than one brand.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 So let's start. What w how did the term or the company named vis barrel come to be?
Speaker 2 00:02:35 So it's a Latin word for seeing hope. Um, and so being the fact that the majority of what this company does affects people with low vision or who are blind, um, and the technology that we make affect people with vision loss, um, we decided that that was, you know, an appropriate name.
Speaker 1 00:02:55 Okay. No, that, that makes sense. How about if you mind talking about a little bit about yourself and how you got involved at this level? Uh, I'm sure you've had a long career, obviously in technology. So can you give us a little history?
Speaker 2 00:03:11 Yeah, sure. Uh, you know, it's, it's funny. I, um, as most people, you know, you go through college and you think, can you have a dream of what you want to do when you grow up? And it's nothing what I'm doing today. Right. You know, I went to, I went to school for broadcasting and television and things of that nature. And when I graduated, um, you know, worked in, um, public radio and commercial radio and TV for awhile. And, um, in 1994, um, moved back to, um, the Virginia area where I live now and in the Washington DC Metro area, and was asked to do, um, training on assistive technology. Um, and this is, you know, not at a time when most of the products that, that I was training on don't exist today, which is always, you know, 25 years later, you know, you kind of expect, but it's weird that the brands are so different than what they were then.
Speaker 2 00:04:12 And so I did that for a few years, joined, um, the Columbia lighthouse for the blind in 1996 and ran their technology division, um, to help, um, train people, um, who used assistive technology on how to use that technology. And then I, um, went and worked at a different industry product companies in 2001, and then ran large government contracts from 2002 until I want to say 2014. Um, and they were things like providing training, um, helped us support, um, engineering support to federal agencies to assist their, um, disabled employees and using different assistive technologies. So whether it was, you know, an organization like social security administration or IRS, or any of those others that have large numbers of people with disabilities working for them, um, you know, I was working within those organizations to, um, uh, make sure that the assistive technology and the user support and the training all went, you know, went well for that.
Speaker 2 00:05:28 And then in 2014, uh, joined, um, at the, uh, freedom scientific to start a consulting group within freedom scientific to help, um, organizations who were buying our software and hardware such as jaws and, and, and some of the hardware such as focus, braille displays solve, um, accessibility related problems. And when we think about the, you know, you know, just, um, just the other day, you know, Domino's pizza doesn't want to make her work at the end of the show. So, yeah, we're going to go an example of why we got into consulting was because of organizations needing to make sure that their digital properties became accessible so that people who were blind in this case, you know, we were very focused on, um, blindness, not, um, or low vision, not on, um, all the other disabilities that we are focused on today when it comes to the consulting practice. But, you know, there's, uh, many of our customers were challenged with accessibility issues and, you know, we were, uh, you know, in a spot where we could assist those organizations because we had both the expertise and the technology that they were using, um, in jaws. So that's, um, did that for, you know, five years, uh, running that consulting practice. Um, and through that time, you know, we, you know, acquired some other companies along the way and grew that to be a sizable organization, and then moved into the, um, running a business development in 2019.
Speaker 1 00:07:02 I think I was remiss in not, uh, acknowledging your title. You are vice president of business.
Speaker 2 00:07:11 Yeah. Vice president of business development for across all the brands within. Um, so if you, you know, again, freedom scientific OptiPlex enhanced vision and the Pepsi-Cola group, so that
Speaker 1 00:07:22 This part is sort of like go into a little mini mall in a way you've got all these four different entities, plus the consulting, uh, I take the consulting part is a different aspect of the group.
Speaker 2 00:07:35 Yeah. The, the consulting falls under the past yellow groups. So that's the, that's the organization. Yeah. So maybe it's good to break down those brands for everybody. Cause you know, if you were, if you're a blind consumer and you've always used jaws, you don't probably interact with optic or enhanced vision or the past yellow group on a regular basis. If you are a low vision person and you go and you buy a camera, you've may have looked at opt elect and hand fishing or freedom scientific products. Um, and so if we take a look at those brands and we'll start with freedom scientific because it's, um, it's brand was formed originally out of, you know, three companies, um, with hinder Joyce, um, Arkenstone and Blasi. And, um, you know, for the many years it was mainly a software company. And over time they developed hardware as well to, um, support their customers and products such as jaws.
Speaker 2 00:08:34 Um, open-book and later when we acquired AI squared, which made ZoomText, those are the kind of key software lines of products. Um, and then on the, on the hardware side, within freedom scientific, you have products like focus, braille displays, which come in different sizes. You have the Ruby handheld, I'm going to forget a brand, but you know, one of these products, um, if I try to go through all of them Topaz, um, uh, video magnifiers, and then they also had standalone scanning scan and read machines as well. And, um, if you look across the brands, if we move to the others, you know, you'll see very similar like hardware products where you have the handheld magnifiers with Ottawa called compact. Um, you would have, uh, desktop units called clear view. Um, and then they also have scan and read devices like the clear view reader.
Speaker 2 00:09:33 Um, and then if we moved over enhanced vision, um, you would have products like the Merlin as a desktop unit, the pearls, uh, uh, not pro excuse me. Um, uh, um, I'm trying to think of all the pebble is the handheld product. They have a wearable called Jordy. So there's like a wide range of products across all of these different brands that do similar things, but sometimes, um, are met differently based on the, um, are sold differently based on the market that the distribution works in. And so, you know, one product may be better, um, sold through, you know, VA systems for the veterans and or blinded veterans. And then another product may do better in schools. Another other one may be do better in the vocational rehabilitation and some others may be bigger in government. So a lot of it just depends on the distribution channels.
Speaker 2 00:10:29 Um, and you know, for most of us who are listening to this, um, interview, you know, if you're a consumer of these technologies, you know, you don't deal with, you know, these companies as much as you deal with your local distribution channel. And so, you know, whether it's a person in Bethesda, Maryland, who's telling you the technology or a person in Huntington beach or a person in Austin, Texas, you know, you're dealing locally with that distribution channel. And we want you to continue to do that because it's, it's the right approach because they're able to drive out and support you. Um, and so, you know, from a company perspective, you know, even if you know, you, you know, may call our main phone number and it says the Sparrow, and then it's going to talk about the different brands. And if you call tech support, those tech support, people can support all of the products across the company.
Speaker 2 00:11:25 And so whether, you know, you may get a software support person who's covering ZoomText, you know, jaws or something like that. Um, and then, you know, if you end up with a hardware support person, they could probably support Ruby, compact pebble, you know, um, the one thing I'd probably, you know, if you think of it from a brand perspective, we actually believe that more people know the brands by the product brand names, because Ruby and, and focus and specifically, and even ZoomText, those are brands in themselves. And, you know, sometimes people just know you as the jaws company and that's okay. We're fine with that, you know? Cause it makes sense for that customer.
Speaker 1 00:12:07 Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. So these, all of these companies still have websites of their own, correct?
Speaker 2 00:12:16 Correct. If you, you can go to the sparrow.com um, and find all of the brands websites, but you could go directly to freedom scientific.com or, um, opt like has multiple, um, you know, domains depending on the country you're in, um, enhance vision and the past yellow group, all, all of those four companies have their own brand websites.
Speaker 1 00:12:41 Yeah. It was the next question. Uh, you're not just in the United States, you're in countries in the world,
Speaker 2 00:12:48 Correct? Yep. Yeah, we have, um, I think, I don't know if I'm going to get this number, right. So hopefully nobody quotes me on the number, but it's like, I think we're in 70 countries now. Our products are in 70 countries, uh, is what I had heard at one point from a, um, where we actually have staff. It's mostly in, in the U S um, uh, with headquarters in Clearwater, um, offices and, um, uh, Huntington beach, California. Um, and then, uh, we have offices in Canada where we have staff, uh, the UK barren Dereck. The Netherlands is, is kind of our third major hub. Um, that's our European hub. Um, and then, um, I'm going to forget a country. Um, but, uh, um, and then we covered, you know, Belgium also with an UN UN office. So, um, you know, once again, I probably forgot it. Oh, Germany, Germany is a huge, um, office, um, and location for us as well. But you know, if someone in South Africa needs us, it, you know, we have international sales teams who support it,
Speaker 1 00:14:04 You know, and that's, I think that's an important aspect. This is just not a little thing. This is huge all over the world because people need equipment. And a lot of, uh, countries are very supportive of their disabled, uh, uh, people and, and provide a lot of the equipment. So we, we, uh, we understand how important that is.
Speaker 2 00:14:30 I think on top of that, I think you, um, you know, one thing, you know, for people to realize is that, you know, we're not, um, just, um, in this, because we're business people, we're in it because we, we live and breathe it, um, you know, I'm blind myself. Um, my colleagues, um, you know, are blind and low vision and use this technology every day. You know, our, um, one of our sales man call our help desk. Um, you're also going to get blind, low vision employees, you're you, uh, the people building the software and the hardware, you know, they're blind and low vision themselves, not everybody, but, you know, it's, uh, you know, we w what's great about that is that we can really drive solutions, not just based on, you know, theory, it's based on actual experience of, of the people who work there. Great.
Speaker 1 00:15:22 I think let's talk about, uh, low vision because, uh, the statistics are very clear that with the older population, particularly baby boomers, more, there's more need for magnification systems. And whether it be a handheld or of a CCTV, that whole landscape has changed too in the last, oh boy, I'd say 10 years, at least.
Speaker 2 00:15:55 Yeah. So, and there's such a, um, unique, um, you know, you used the word CCTV because that's what we called them before. Right. And now they're, they've kind of like tried to rebrand themselves as video magnifiers because CCTV is the camera in the corner of spying on you when you go through a shopping mall. Right. But I do, I still say CCTV. So I get it.
Speaker 1 00:16:20 I just want to mention, my first one was a visual tech from the 1970s. The thing
Speaker 2 00:16:24 Was a monster and they were, what was great about them is that they, they would now be antiques because they're, they were wood-paneled. Um, you know, my first unit was, was only made for right-handed people and I'm a left-handed person because the camera was built into the side of the monitor on the right side. So I'd have to cross across the paper when writing and, and block the camera, which was kind of an awkward thing.
Speaker 1 00:16:51 Totally separate. The camera was good. You put it anywhere
Speaker 2 00:16:55 Microscope, right. It was huge. It was
Speaker 1 00:16:59 The lenses, or, I mean, now we have things we can literally carry in our pocket.
Speaker 2 00:17:05 Yeah. And, and that's the, um, uniqueness about low vision that I think it's, it's, it's confusing because there's no one product that meets everybody's needs. Um, you know, you may use one, um, for doing arts and crafts. Um, you may use another one for reading a medicine bottle. You may use a different one when you go to the store, a different one. When you watch TV, you know, if you're sitting down and reading a book, it may be a specific style. A lot of it depends, um, on the use case, right? And the other day I was playing games with the family and, and I couldn't see the colors on the board because of the lighting. And so I ended up putting the board underneath the, um, a clear view goes, so I could actually see the colors and the shapes, um, and zoomed right in.
Speaker 2 00:17:59 And they were looking at going, wait a second, our boards, the size of an index card, and yours is the size of a, um, you know, 15 inch monitor, but I could see it in play then. Right. So I could participate differently. Um, and so, you know, I think that when people look at all these different devices and even looking at, um, you, you need to weigh what your needs are and you need to wait, you know, look at what are your use cases, and then determine is a, you know, a handheld device going to benefit you in, in my home alone. I would probably have, I think I have four different, low vision aids, um, video magnifier, video magnifiers that do different things from a handheld to a wearable, um, a desktop unit. And actually, I guess it's only three units. So I have three today, if you want
Speaker 1 00:18:53 To count the I phone's magnifier.
Speaker 2 00:18:56 Yeah. And so that's an interesting one. Cause the, you know, the iPhone magnifiers is it's something that, depending on someone's vision loss, um, it may work for somebody. Now, if you had to read a lot, the challenges are that there's no handle on an iPhone. Right. Um, it's, um, focus was designed not for short, close distance, but for, for distance long distance, right? So it's built around taking a picture of a person or a thing, but not necessarily focusing on text. And so when you compare the quality of the video for somebody who's sitting down and reading with a Ruby, it's drastically different when you use an iPhone, um, and touch screens, um, you know, are becoming more prevalent today. But, um, with, you know, because of the iPhone, but it doesn't mean that a senior, um, who has potentially mobility issues along with vision loss is going to have as easy time using, you know, touch screens. Now we have touch screens in some of our handhelds today and some of our bigger units of desktop units as well. Um, but you, that's why you have multiple different types of products out there on the market as to, you know, meet different people's needs. Um, I've, you know, tried to use in a pinch would use the iPhone's camera, but I couldn't look at it. Um, in that game setting that I was with my family that day, I actually needed to go get something
Speaker 1 00:20:30 Bigger screen you'd need something different.
Speaker 2 00:20:33 Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one thing that people, you know, when you look at all the different, um, you know, technologies is understanding that there's so many different, low vision conditions, um, that, you know, one technology may work for a certain low-vision, um, condition, but it's not going to work for the next one. And then as you just said, fatiguing, I think, you know, people who just sit down and read a book, don't understand, I fatigue as much that affects someone with, you know, who's low vision because when they sit there and look at a screen for, you know, a long period of time, that's tough. And if you try to use a wearable and put that on and try to use it for 30 minutes to read a book, you're not going to be able to do it. No, no. Um, I took, uh, I took a wearable last night to the, um, National's baseball game and, and used it to be able to see, you know, the baseball game, but no, I'm not reading the Jersey numbers. That's not how close on my eye. I can't do that. Right. It doesn't matter how big I make it. I need to be like right behind the guy to read his Jersey. That's how close I need to be. Right. And I'm not getting that kind of, um, you know, but I'm taking it off in between bats at bounce I'm taking off during in-between innings. Cause I can't sit there for a three hour baseball game, you know, with, uh, um, something strapped to my head, trying to see it.
Speaker 1 00:21:59 I'm just wondering, are these companies, uh, that are doing the magnification, uh, products, are they really starting to focus on the elderly person who is going to only need it for maybe a few years?
Speaker 2 00:22:16 Well, I think the, um, one of the challenges in this industry that that is not always defined well for, for the consumer is that, um, our product lines are still considered a niche market in that there's not millions of people spending money on these things like they do with TVs and phones. Right. And so when you think about the, you know, product, life span, you know, some of these products are, you know, five, 10 years. I still have, uh, I almost had CCTV, um, still have a CCTV from, you know, that was from 2002 that works perfectly fine in my house, you know? Um, it's, it's, you know, I pull it out for certain needs. Um, but it's not like I keep it out on my desk at all times. Um, if you know, somebody who's, you know, losing their vision at 60, um, you know, it's not like they're going to be, um, done with it in two years.
Speaker 2 00:23:24 If somebody who's in their seventies or eighties, they may choose not even to, to bother with it. And they may use other ways to accomplish the tasks. And, you know, I know I have a guy who's 74 and he has, you know, one at the horse farm and another one on, uh, on his desk at home. And he has, uh, where he is a, um, a, that he keeps in his pocket. Right. And people get a chance. It's a, it's a great video. There's if you go to YouTube and go to the Sparrow channel and the Sparrow for those who don't know, it's V I S P E R O. So if you, if you search for the Sparrow channel, there's some great videos up there, um, with customers talking about how they use this technology. And there's a great one on, on low vision and the different devices.
Speaker 1 00:24:10 Let's talk just briefly about, uh, how, how much braille has changed. I mean, I started in the slate and stylus and Perkins Brailler, you know, back in the sixties, but it's all different now. There's lots of choices.
Speaker 2 00:24:27 Yeah. And I think, um, very similar to the low vision aids, um, the braille displays. And, you know, if we think about, um, refreshable braille, um, you know, when you're looking at devices, you're looking at them based on, um, the use case again. So for example, I have a, uh, focus 14 that I carry with me every day, you know, when I'm traveling and I use it to, you know, control my smartphone with my iPhone and I can type on my iPhone, you know, using the braille display and read the text messages and read my emails, respond to things, answer the phone, start music, whatever I want to do. Size-wise, it's great because again, I can carry it with me. I could put it in a, um, uh, jacket pocket, those kinds of things. Then I have a, uh, focus 40, um, that I would actually, you know, hook up to my computer either Bluetooth or, or using a cable and, and, you know, be able to type on my computer, read stuff on the screen, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 00:25:33 But it's, you know, it's portable, it's more likely going to be sitting at my desk or going in my bag when I take my laptop with me. And then the last one would be the, like a focus 80, which is back when we designed not way, but back when people were choosing 80 characters, um, for the length of a, uh, braille this way they were doing it because of, you know, dos was actually 80 characters across the screen. And that's why it's 80 characters is because, you know, it was made sense. We could cover the entire width of a computer screen. And once you got the windows that, that all changed, um, nothing's actually fixed in terms of sizing. Um, it's all up to the pixels and the font sizes that people want to use. So, um, when people are using those for, you know, um, call centers, they're using them for, you know, programming, using it for editing things of that nature.
Speaker 2 00:26:33 But those aren't portable in the same way. You're not going to take it somewhere. You're going to leave it at your desk and use it. Um, I think it's, it's wonderful have braille, um, being so portable, um, being so available to connect to any of your devices, whether it's an iPhone and Android phone or a windows, computer running jaws, you, you have all of that power, um, at your hands. And I, I don't, um, even though I can use the onscreen keyboard on an iPhone, um, I can also do dictation. I still, if I'm going to write something more than that, I pull out the braille display every single time to write even text messages, just because it's so much faster, it's more accurate and all of that kind of stuff. Um, so I think it's wonderful to see people, um, having access to more content today because of braille, because you're not having to, you know, order books and wait for books in bound copies and how thick they may be. You can just get a digital one and whether you're reading on Kendall or reading on I books, or, um, uh, Bard or one of the other systems to download your, your digital version of the book, it's awesome that you have that at your fingertips at this point.
Speaker 1 00:27:49 Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, my notes for you are sitting here and missed a little device I have, and that carrying a bunch of papers and fumbling through everything. So yeah, I would, I was a little girl, you know, braille, you either could read large print or braille. Well, I couldn't read large print. So I had to learn braille at a young age. You know what I am so glad I did because some, at some point, uh, we thought braille was going away, but I don't think it is. And I think it's actually stronger now because of the electronic devices,
Speaker 2 00:28:24 I would agree. And I, I think that, um, you know, this is about all of us educating, um, children, parents, and teachers, and, and reinforcing the need. And that it's not a negative stereotype. Somebody asked me the other day would I want to wear a wearable on my head? Cause don't, you look a little different don't you, people are looking at you. I'm like people are wearing Google glass, like, you know, five, whatever years ago. And people, you know, granted the wearables that, you know, low vision people will have to wear a little bigger and bulkier than that. But who's to say, you know, if you want to accomplish something, you got to just do it. And we have to give people the power to say, it's okay to use braille. It's okay to read braille and you should want to, uh, want to do those things. And, and, um, because it improves literacy, you know, it's, if, if all I did was listen to my computer all day long, um, you know, could I have been a strong writer, you know? Um, and so even though I don't sit down and read large chunks at a time in braille, like some other people do I still use it, um, every day for typing and editing.
Speaker 1 00:29:44 Do you, uh, when in your consulting or do the manufacturers, do they work with other software, uh, entities, such as windows and these other things to try to head off problems?
Speaker 2 00:30:03 Are you asking about the braille specifically? Or were you talking more in general for the consulting side?
Speaker 1 00:30:08 I guess I'm asking for the, the, the jaws portion of it. I I'm a jaws user and sometimes it's like, wow, why didn't this work? You know?
Speaker 2 00:30:21 Yeah, it's funny. I'm, I'm, you know, I was in a couple of Facebook groups and watching people, you know, comment on stuff. And one of them was commenting that, you know, jaws should do a better job at solving all the problems on a bad webpage. And the promise is that one of the things that's lost in all of this is that we use the word screen reader. And in reality, if a screen reader today is not reading the screen, it's reading the code and, you know, um, it gets its information from whatever the developer or the content creator gave it. And so if you have a, you know, uh, uh, a video player on a, on a webpage and you get there and you'll hear things like unlabeled button or button zero, well, Josh is getting that information from the code of the webpage and the developer needs to put a proper label on that, so that a person who's blind using jaws or using a braille display, um, can get that information correctly. Um, and there's, you know, all of this concept of an automatic fixer out there that can like go fix webpages for you. It just doesn't exist today,
Speaker 1 00:31:37 I guess that does bring us into the consult, the paleo,
Speaker 2 00:31:42 Right? The consulting that's passed yellow group, um, the fourth brand. And, you know, they're, they're, you know, their goals are to, to help organizations solve these problems. Um, you know, whether it's, uh, you know, a Domino's is in that last, you know, the, the lawsuit that they try to take up to the Supreme court that was
Speaker 1 00:32:06 Shut down,
Speaker 2 00:32:07 They got sent back to the lower court and said, um, you know, it, the key with this is that, um, that would have really done a lot of damage to, um, to people who are blind, um, because, or, and other disabilities, because we would have had, you know, organizations saying, look, they didn't have to do it, so why am I doing it? And, you know, my concern is equal access in society. Do we want to participate just like anybody else? And if I want to go to a, um, restaurant, um, whether I want to go to the restaurant online and order food, or if I want to go there in person, um, you know, the building has to be accessible. Well, what about the digital content? That's on those, like the kiosks and how does it a little bit talk about that? But those in all of that is, is part of this consulting arm to come in and help organizations solve these kinds of things, and whether it's, you know, webpages or applications, and one thing that's unique about the pasteurella group and, um, compared to other organizations to do similar consulting is that we also can do a lot of solving a problems for employment situations, because we, we make Johns, you know, within the freedom scientific side of the business and we make ZoomText.
Speaker 2 00:33:38 And so from an employment perspective, employers who are, you know, having people who are blind or low vision working at their organizations can tap into the past halo group to come help them make sure their internal apps, not just the external facing websites and mobile apps, but their internal applications that everybody has to use by working at that organization. Let's make sure they're accessible because, you know, I could care less about a website that selling me pizza if I don't have money to pay for that pizza by having a job. And so we need to ensure that, you know, whether, um, it's the internal applications that these organizations are building at financial institutions or restaurants or commercial companies that they're building those accessible so that the people who are blind and low vision or other disabilities can actually interact with those applications to be productive on the job.
Speaker 1 00:34:36 So I believe I saw on the website that the group provides a it correct me if I misread this a free analysis of a website.
Speaker 2 00:34:50 Yeah. It's called, um, arc, um, arc, which is accessible resource center. Um, and basically it's a, it's a tool that can spider our website is, is kind of a generic term, but it basically goes through and, and catalogs as many of the errors that it can find based on the criteria of the WCAJ, the worldwide web, um, accessibility guidelines, um, these, uh, accessibility guidelines thing get scanned, you know, and then we come back and say, Hey, you have, you know, 15 errors per page on average. And these are the errors you have, and you can go down and figure out what the issues are. There's nothing. Um, you know, I, there's some things that, um, the tools can do. And then there's some things that, you know, people still have to do. And that's part of the consulting side is to come in and, and, and walk you through that, that content aid, the free accessibility scan and help an organization determine, do we need to do more than this? Um, do we need to have, you know, testers go through and find the issues that they're hitting, um, a machine today, doesn't tell you, um, all the issues. So we still have the consulting side as well
Speaker 1 00:36:12 Without saying costs because that's an FCC thing for us being community radio. Is it really huge amounts of money to repair a website?
Speaker 2 00:36:26 So, um, I always like to equate things like, um, when you're first building a house versus updating your house later, um, when you, when you go in and you're buying a new house and you make that, they'll offer you all these upgrades and I'll say, Hey, would you like to have, you know, these different windows put in, or would you like your bathroom to be upgraded with a hot, a jacuzzi tub or something like that? And you say, no, cause I don't, I don't want to spend the extra $2,000. And I'm just going to generically say $2,000, but then five, 10 years later, you say, you know what, I'm ready to upgrade that bathroom or remodel. And now it's $20,000 and I'm not, you know, I don't
Speaker 1 00:37:08 Want to exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 2 00:37:11 I don't want to say that everything equates that that way, but it's obviously cheaper to make these decisions when you're building. Um, and when you look at the severity of the issues that come back, when you're looking at challenges on the website, um, one of the things you have to do is, is figure out, you know, what's a priority, what are the different priorities and which ones stop people from actually interacting with my site? What stops them from doing business with me? And that, that's why when we do the consulting where we're helping you make those decisions, we're going to tell you, Hey, these are higher priority than these, these are lower priority because the person could still buy your goods. They can still pay their bill. They can still, you know, order your services or whatever it may be if, you know, ranking the things and telling people know what things they need to focus on is very key.
Speaker 2 00:38:14 Um, additionally, it's important to, um, help an organization find the things that can knock off a big chunk of them at one time. And one of the neat things about the arc platform is it comes back and tells you not only that you have this air, but that this air may exist on every, on your site. So if we knock that one out, we just, it's a a hundred page site. We just knocked off a hundred issues, not one websites today. Um, use a lot of templates to drive, um, the way the page looks. So if we can fix things in the templates, we can fix things more broadly. Um, so going back to your original question is, is, is it expensive? Um, you know, we're actually not fixing the site for people. We're telling them how to fix a site or what things they need to fix. So they still have their own development teams that have to pay to, um, make changes or fix, fix the sites. Um, and you know, I've seen jobs that are, um, you know, in, you know, a couple thousand or you can see jobs that are very expensive. And a lot of it just depends on, um, what the tasks are and what they're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1 00:39:31 Do you think there's any way we could make, uh, developers more aware on the head end of the project it's
Speaker 2 00:39:44 Training, it's all about training, um, like any organization, the key is giving them the information and if they know about it, and I've done a lot of, um, training of developers, um, my, my training's not as technical as some others in the organization, but, um, when I sit down with the developers and we, and we get that yacht, you know, the aha moment where they're like, oh, that's really bad. Then they they're now solutioning differently. After that point, when they realize what a screen reader does and they become so much more and, you know, half of it, I mean, you could, you could do an hour talk and you're going to make huge change and the decisions that a developer's going to make, because they're, they're not, um, they're not going to stop and just learn that one hour talk. They're going to go research and find more data.
Speaker 2 00:40:36 And there's so much good data on the web in terms of, you know, um, blog posts or, um, you know, training out there, um, that they're going to go out there and figure out a lot of this stuff on their own once they understand the problem. And that's the first thing is understanding what the challenges are now. I'm never going to say it's that easy for everybody. So, you know, at the past yellow group, they offer training, um, uh, for companies to teach them how to do this, uh, whether you do a live class or you do, um, you know, take an online course that they offer to help people learn about digital accessibility and coding things correctly,
Speaker 1 00:41:14 Do you think, and this is just an opinion only, uh, the recent Supreme court, uh, de non-decision w you think that will impact, uh, many private companies.
Speaker 2 00:41:31 Um, I think that, you know, it was, you know, the original target one or, or a Winn-Dixie a couple of years ago or, or this one, um, they're all, they're all driving change and, um, awareness is the first step, right? Um, the, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I never even thought about the Domino's website. Right. Um, except for what I had read about the lawsuit. And the other day, I was a couple weeks ago, I was watching, um, probably like a, a football game or something on TV. And there was a commercial from Domino's saying, go to our website and you get a discount and I'm sitting there going, wait, did I get, but I can't get the discount because I couldn't go to the website
Speaker 1 00:42:14 Now. That's yeah, that was the crux of the whole,
Speaker 2 00:42:17 Uh, and, and, you know, that's the, I think in the end, you know, companies do business through digital. Um, they don't just have a storefront anymore. Um, and so, you know, different, no different than requiring you to have handicapped parking spaces. Um, this is access to your business. And so, yeah, I would expect that, um, this is going to drive more now. I, unfortunately, I, I think there's a good and a bad to the lawsuits. The, the bad is that there's a lot of negativity around it. Um, the good is that it's, it creates awareness. And, um, I think that if, if companies out there want to solve these kinds of problems, they can do it ahead of time. Um, I also think that there needs to be some understanding that small businesses may, um, need more time. They shouldn't be attacked like this, um, versus, you know, large businesses who should, you know, do what they're doing right away.
Speaker 1 00:43:24 Yeah. I can, it's going to be an interesting, uh, future here to see what, how things really come out in the end. So let's talk about kiosks, because that also has been a big deal here recently. First of all, can you tell us what a kiosk is? Because
Speaker 2 00:43:43 That, yeah, so it's funny because if you think about a kiosk, um, let's start with the, the ones that most people know and use, which is like an ATM. Okay. It's kind of like a kiosk, it's a self-service, you can walk up, put a card in and buy, you know, get your money out. Okay. That's the one you probably everybody's used is an ATM. The next one that, that got in, in ATM's today, or I haven't found one that's not accessible. So I think that, you know, they've done a nice job with that. There's a headphone Jack on all ATM's plug headphones in and away. You go now, keep in mind. We all have to now still carry around the old headphones, not the ones that work with the iPhone today. Um, so now we're carrying around two sets of headphones, right?
Speaker 1 00:44:27 Yeah. That's a, that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2 00:44:32 The, um, the next one that kind of, you know, became required to be accessible through, um, the, uh, FAA and department of transportation was the kiosk that you'll find in airports where you want to print your ticket or your boarding pass, um, or you want to change your seat or buy something, you know, so those were required to be accessible. Um, but other things that people use them for is, is self service. And whether it's one that you use at a grocery store to check out,
Speaker 1 00:45:11 Let's talk about kiosks. Cause that also has been a big deal here recently. First of all, can you tell us what a kiosk is? Because that
Speaker 2 00:45:21 Has changed. It's funny because if you think about a kiosk, um, let's start with the, the ones that most people know and use, which is like an ATM. Okay. It's kind of like a kiosk. It's a self-service you can walk up, put a card in and buy, you know, get your money out. Okay. That's the one you probably everybody's used is an ATM. The next one that, that got an ATM today, or I haven't found one that's not accessible. So I think that they've done a nice job with that. There's a headphone Jack on all, ATM's like headphones in and away. You go now, keep in mind. We all have to now still carry around the old headphones, not the ones that work with the iPhone today. Um, so now we're carrying around two sets of headphones, right?
Speaker 1 00:46:05 Yeah. That's a, that's an interesting thing too.
Speaker 2 00:46:10 The, um, the next one that kind of, you know, became required to be accessible through, um, the, uh, FAA and department transportation was the kiosks that you'll find in airports where you want to print your ticket or your boarding pass, um, or you want to change your seat or buy something, you know, so those were required to be accessible. Um, but other things that people use them for is, is self service. And whether it's one that you use at a grocery store to check out, um, in the self-service lines or at a restaurant where you walk up and you want to buy the hamburger, um, the pizza or something like that, but where you go to a shopping mall and there's a directory where you walk into a VA and you want to, um, uh, VA hospital and you want to check in and let the, you know, let them know you're here for your appointment. Or you go to your, um, clinic to see a doctor and they all have kiosks today. Um,
Speaker 1 00:47:23 A kiosk touchscreen that you can't figure out what's on it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:47:28 Exactly. Yeah. I mean, and the touchscreens exist everywhere. I mean, you have one just to ride the train into DC. I, I have to go over and use a touchscreen. I taught, I tap the bottom corner of the screen and it starts talking, um, in, in the ATM world, you plug in your headphones and it starts talking. Um, so, um, we have, um, done some work within the jaws, um, product to enable it, to work on these self-service kiosks. Um, and you know, whether it's using a touch screen, um, or using some type of other form of input, you know, like a keyboard or a, um, uh, there's a company called storm interface, which has, um, a product called the audio nav. And basically it's, you know, a left right up down a center button. And when you plug your headphones in, jaws will start talking if that device has jaws installed on it.
Speaker 2 00:48:36 And, um, you know, it'll provide you instructions on press the right arrow to move forward, press the left arrow, to move back, press the down arrow, to move to the next section, press the center button to select something. So if you're trying to walk in and pick a movie out at a movie theater or you're, um, getting your train, you may use that kind of input, or you may use a number pad, or you may use a full-size keyboard. Um, today jaws, um, software is in about 10,000 kiosks in the U S um, and you can find them in, in, you know, places like, um, on a carnival cruise ship. Um, if you go on a carnival cruise, a Holland America, or princess cruise lines, and you go to the internet cafe, you can plug in headphones. Um, I think their command to launch it because it's an older computer is F 12 and jaws will start talking. Um, and that allows somebody who's blind to sit down and use the internet to book us a short excursion or, um, look at their, um, bill or do email on the boat, just like anybody else. Wow. That one's not a touchscreen, that one's a regular computer,
Speaker 1 00:49:53 But yeah. The older things would be, yeah. Do you think they'll ever get to the point where you can use Bluetooth, so you won't have to carry all these headsets with you?
Speaker 2 00:50:02 I don't think so. Um, there's too much security around it. I mean, a lot of these devices have payment systems connected to them. There's a lot of risks around that. So I, I don't anticipate Bluetooth, um, any day soon now, who knows what that tomorrow's technology will bring. Um, and you know, what, what comes after Bluetooth? You know, I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1 00:50:27 There's always that little adapter that you can
Speaker 2 00:50:30 Exactly. And how many adapters do we have to carry around? You know, I mean, device heavy adapter, heavy got a bag full of adapters everywhere I travel. Right.
Speaker 1 00:50:41 But, you know, things are a lot lighter and smaller than they used to be.
Speaker 2 00:50:45 Yeah. You take a look at like, um, you know, the focus 14. And I said that I carry it everywhere I go. I mean, it's very light, you know, compared to, um, the first braille display I saw was something back in the eighties called versa braille. Um, and it was heavy, you know, you wouldn't carry that around very far.
Speaker 1 00:51:08 Well, the first curse Weiler I ever saw in the seventies took up a whole table. Sure. You couldn't carry it around. It was. So yeah, things are really, things are getting smaller and it all in perspective, things are much more efficient for us than in the past to me, we can do things on our own. Now we don't always have to have somebody reading something to us. Uh,
Speaker 2 00:51:39 Thanks to you guys worried about, you know, all the, even, even apps on the phone, you know, the free apps from like Microsoft and others that allow people to do that. You know, I mean, like seeing AI as a great invention of just, Hey, I want to read something quick. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:51:55 That was a question I thought of is apps and, uh, websites, things that are on the computer or are those totally different things and how they work and how they, how they can be accessed in terms of technology.
Speaker 2 00:52:15 So, you know, there's, there's different versions of apps depending on which platform you're in. Right? So the, um, an example would be in windows 10, you may have office 365, you may have office 2016, or you may try to download, you know, there's an app for code the Microsoft office store apps, and each of them are coded slightly different. Um, and so one of the things I always recommend to people is trying to stay on the latest technology you can. And so the office 365, which a lot of people get confused by and they think it's only on a website because it's cloud-based, but you can install the full version of Microsoft office using 365 and get all the capabilities of it. And it's, it's just the differences it's updating on your computer. You know, every I'm going to use the concept of four to six weeks, you know, not knowing their entire development cycle, but it's key to be on the latest tech. Um, and those apps, you know, are available also on your phone, the Microsoft apps. Um, I'm not sure that they work slightly different with voiceover than they may with jaws. Um, just because jaws these on a windows PC with a lot more power to the PC than let's say a phone that has a limited view screen and limited menus being shown at one time.
Speaker 1 00:53:44 So what do you, what would you in a perfect world, what would you want to see happen with technology? That would be the most awesome thing.
Speaker 2 00:53:57 I think when, um, companies collaborate better, um, you know, similar to like what we're doing with these kiosks, when we're working with the kiosk card, where manufacturers we're working with input devices, you know, we're bringing in, you know, braille technology and speech into these kinds of scenarios. Um, that's when we can really strengthen the opportunities for people by having, you know, collaboration across different companies to drive that change if, um, if companies sometimes try to do it on their own, um, and add, you know, uh, stuff to their technology without actually understanding, um, what the user is or the user's needs are, um, we have greater challenges. So I think that, um, you know, forms of collaboration among, um, entities like ours with other companies to help them drive changes is key. Um, I think if we can, you know, encourage, um, uh, Congress to work on legislation that could help drive accessibility is, is mandates so more to the ADA where it's very clear and, um, not just through the courts, but through, um, you know, legislation I think is key, um, so that people understand what their, what their requirements are.
Speaker 2 00:55:26 And they're not guessing, I think it's still key to do that. Um, I think that the courts have done a nice job in terms of trying to say that it exists, but it's always good to have, um, the backup from, uh, from Congress. Um, additionally, I, I think, um, continued, um, collaboration. I, I love the collaboration we have with Microsoft and Google. It's great. That kind of stuff allows us to build better technology and them to build better technology to work with us. Um, as I said, Google, of course my Google home started listening to whatever I was going to do.
Speaker 1 00:56:04 Well, I find that particularly interesting because I know Microsoft has built in some screen running, uh, stuff in there they're based computers, uh, in the software itself, but, uh, jaws still preferred for most people that I know.
Speaker 2 00:56:27 Yeah. And I think there's a difference between, um, you know, they have to do things, um, you know, because they have to do what's right. Um, but by putting their rater in the system and, and also because of probably legal pressure as well, when you, you know, building a DVR, uh, which is what, you know, X-Box can be more than just a, a game system. It can also be what you watch TV on, you know, there's rules that require them to have, um, accessibility in these kinds of devices. If you're building phones, the FCC is going to require that kind of stuff. And so, um, at the same time, they use it to test and validate that they're building things accessibly, so the jaws can read it. Um, what I find is employers still need, um, a company who is making technology work with all of the different applications out there, and jaws has more power to be able to do that. Um, and you know, we've done a lot of work in the last year to, to make it more accessible to people at home, um, by creating the home use program where, you know, jaws is $90 a year, instead of, you know, the original, what is it? $895 or something like that. And again, I'm not exactly sure on the price and pricing's not part of this conversation, but the key was that we wanted to make it easier for people who couldn't afford it. Um, and I think that was, uh, the key thing that we did.
Speaker 1 00:58:01 Yeah. Jaws. It's still the big player, uh, in ZoomText, uh, works with jaws now, right?
Speaker 2 00:58:11 Yeah. They're both compatible together. And then, um, we came out with a, um, a single product line that combines the two called fusion. And so if you, um, purchased the fusion product, you, you actually get both products, um, installed in your computer, both zoom, text, Angeles,
Speaker 1 00:58:30 Pleasure talking with you. I, I learned a lot and I hope our listeners, uh, this, uh, will enjoy listening and understanding the nuances of all this stuff. It's kind of Greek to us sometimes. And I think it's a good day, uh, thing to sit down and talk about it once in a while and let people know what's going on and how much we are moving forward. And that's for sure.
Speaker 2 00:58:54 And how I really appreciate your time and, and, um, uh, look forward to sharing this, uh, uh, episode out there,
Speaker 3 00:59:02 Podcast editor, Aaron here, if you want to reach vice Spyro, you can reach them at 1 804 4 4, 4, 4 43, or go to the website mentioned there. That was my tater, the vice president of vice Spyro interviewed by Dell, October of 2019. This has been disability and progress here on K F a i.org. The views expressed are not necessarily if K F a I or its board of directors. Thanks for listening and take care. Oh, one quick promo. Before we go, programming on KFC is supported by Metro transit. Metro transit now offers use of an app that connects blind and low-vision customers to a live agent for navigation assistance during transit trips, more information at Metro transit dot O R G slash a I R a <inaudible>.
