Talk Direct continue to support the visually impaired
Talk Direct continue to support the visually impaired by holding another technology day, where they go out into the community and show how digital products can help improve daily lives. This time Talk Direct visited the Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind who have been hugely supportive of the iCare project right from the very beginning. The society really got behind this event and invited over 3200 of their service users to this event.
Much time and planning went into putting on this event including an interview on Sheffield live radio, on a show hosted by visually impaired presenters.
Talk Directs Mark Skelton was joined on the day by Josh Suter and Sergio Ali who are 2 of our gurus who will have plenty of experience in showing people how to use accessibility functions, and have a wealth of knowledge regarding apps that can make using a smart phone that much easier.
"We quickly had our first visitors and got the day off to a fantastic start by showing people who have never used such devices how easy they are to navigate with little vision. Some of the people there really wanted to use the technology available to them but have never had the confidence to walk into a store and ask for a demo, so this event was exactly what they had been looking for. Some of the people who attended we are really confident and had been using accessibility functions on their phones for quite some time so we are really interested to see what apps where are available.
A great thing for me at these events is learning how other people who are visually impaired find shortcuts and solutions when using their smartphones and I always take away my knowledge to pass on to other people.A gentleman who spoke to me always thought he would never be able to use a smart phone and all he wanted to do was to be able to make calls and send text messages easier than on his current phone. I quickly showed him how I used my own iPhone to call and text by using Siri. He was utterly amazed how easy it was to do and couldn't believe that he had never heard of how to use the phone like this before. I was absolutely blown away when after five minutes of instruction from me he left the event and went down to our Division Street store and bought an iPhone there and then! To see just how much this meant to the guy really was something else and I wish him all the luck in the world with his new phone.Another gentleman was really interested in how to use a tablet as he was visually impaired and only had a computer with assistive technology at his place of work. When he was using my iPad with the zoom functions he was very quickly impressed. He was an avid Beatles fan so we showed him how to use YouTube to search and listen to music on the device. Once again he couldn't believe what he was able to do in such little time and was very grateful for what we had done.
All day we had people really excited about just how good technology is and I definitely think we converted people who thought that these devices were not for them.At the end of the day we met some of the societies youth club members and I was blown away with just how much technology meant to them. They really were inspirational and to see them using their phones the way they did will stay with me for quite some time. They had obviously not let the sight loss get the better of them and really did embrace technology. One of the members even showed me how he checks his phone bill online using voice-over and the O2 app! This young lad had zero sight and was using his phone quicker than most fully sighted people I have ever met. It just goes to show just how vital technology can be for visually impaired people when given the time and support to show what help is available."
Talk Direct would like to thank Steve, Jane and the rest of the staff at Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind for allowing us to put on this event and hopefully we will be holding another event later on this year. We would like to thank everybody who attended the event and help that you got as much out of it as we did.
