The automation self-service trend has been slowly rolling out to the national airlines, fast food outlets and retailers around the U.S. Sadly, most of these automated systems rely on touch screens for their general use. Chancey spoke with Nicky Shaw, U.S. Operations Manager for Storm Interface, about how businesses can augment these kiosks in a way that allows auditory feedback for navigation of the information offered on touch panels. Tune in to hear the technology in action and to get an overview of what is involved with the process in providing kiosk access. To learn more about this technology, visit the Storm Interface
Website.
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Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Orlando, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of NFB 2018, brought to you by Google
Our friends at Google are working hard to create great technology products for everyone. They’re inviting you to participate in Google user research studies, where you can help shape the future of accessible products and features and get rewarded for it. Check out our tweet for the sign-up link, at blind bargains, or head to google.com slash user research.
Now, here’s Chancey Fleet
CHANCEY FLEET: Hello. I am here with Nicky Shaw. She is the U.S. operations manager for Storm Interface, and we are here together looking at some accessible kiosks that can be used to access devices that people typically access with touchscreens. So can you tell me a little more?
NICKY SHAW: I can, yes. These are audio-enabled tactile keypads that are designed to be permanently installed into touchscreen kiosks to make that kiosk accessible, because not everyone can use a touchscreen for a multitude of reasons, blindness being one of them, maybe the inability to read or palsy or Parkinson's disease, tremor, reach problems, lots of reasons. So we’re seeing touchscreens everywhere nowadays in self-service, and, you know, much of the population is being excluded from using them because they can’t use a touchscreen. However, our devices are now being installed by the kiosk manufacturers, which – and that would enable the people that can’t use a touchscreen to still use the kiosk.
If I can explain to you how it works, there’s an audio jack on each of the keypads, and a user would insert their audio jack into the keypad and then be able to listen to an audio description of what’s being presented on the screen. They then use the tactile buttons of the keypad to navigate through the menu options and make their selections using purely the buttons of the keypad.
CF: In kind of a linear, one at a time structure?
NS: Yeah. The keypads come in a couple of different layouts. They all do essentially the same. On some of the keypads, the buttons are in a linear layout; in some of the keypads, they’re in more of a cluster, you know, sort of, more of a northeast, you know, up, down, left, right, with a center enter button.
CF: Oh. Like an arrow cross. Yeah.
NS: Yeah. Kind of --
CF: Okay.
NS: -- what you find on a TV remote?
CF: Got it.
NS: So there’s a couple of different formats, because not every kiosk has the same amount of space available. I mean, the tendency is to go very, very thin and very streamlined. So some of the keypads will be positioned, you know, outside of the kiosk housing. And then, some are kind of flush with the kiosk housing. So there’s a few different options for the kiosk manufacturers. So no reason for them not to install one of the keypads.
CF: So can you tell me about some of the interfaces that you’ve worked at – supported?
NS: Yeah, I can. I can – I mean, with – some of the customers, we’re under NDA, so I can certainly tell you about the customers that have got these devices out in the wild, so to speak.
CF: Okay.
NS: For the last sort of, probably would say 12 months, the major airlines here in the U.S. have been working – because the Department of Transport mandated that they must provide an accessible audio interface with – you know, tactile interface, so –
CF: That’s been a long time coming.
NS: I know. Finally; right?
CF: Yeah.
NS: So they’ve been working on making – on being compliant. So they’ve used – most of the airlines are using our devices in some shape or form to provide that accessible tactile interface with the audio. So major airlines, and I can say Southwest, because I’ve seen them myself.
CF: Yeah.
NS: United – but all the major airlines that you can think of, really, here in the U.S. They’re gradually rolling them out, airport by airport.
And then, there’s also the quick-service restaurants. Wendy’s were one of the first ones to come to us to say, we realize that a touchscreen alone isn’t enough. You know, what do your devices offer? How can we integrate them? So those guys are using them.
And lots of their competitors are also now using them. I can’t mention some of their names --
CF: All right.
NS: -- but they’re also going to be using them. You’re going to be finding those on some of the quick-service restaurants, the burger chains and things.
And then, lots of other self-service, sort of applications, such as voting. There’s many equipment voting manufacturers that we’re working with to use our devices, as well as retailers. You know, anything to do with self-service and ticketing and that kind of application.
CF: Do you think we should do a really brief demo?
NS: We can do it, yeah. Now, this is -- the volume may or may not work. We’ve had computer problems.
CF: All right. We’ll just swoop in close.
NS: Yeah.
CF: Do the best we can.
NS: Yeah. Certainly. So in front of us here --I’m going to get to the start. So here, we have a simulated kiosk. It’s got your average touchscreen, but it also has one of our devices positioned below it.
CF: All right.
NS: So now, if you can locate the audio jack with your fingers, it’s an indented audio jack, and you found it straight away.
CF: Yup. I found it on the left of the cluster.
NS: Yup. I’m going to insert some speakers rather than a headset so we can actually hear. Oops.
CF: Thanks for your feedback. Okay.
NS: Yeah. Thanks, speakers. Now, you have -- there’s a volume button just behind the audio jack --
CF: Okay.
NS: -- which would allow you to set the volume to a comfortable level for you?
CF: And it’s kind of a – a one-button cycler; right?
NS: It is, but for some reason – yeah. Press it? Yeah. We’ve had problems with the volume on this. Why isn’t it working? Again.
CF: Well –
NS: Yeah. Just a second – because – yeah.
CF: There we go.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Volume 75.
CF: Yeah.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Volume 100.
NS: Okay.
CF: There we go.
NS: It’s still not very loud, but – now, this is basically giving you an audio description of what’s on the screen. It’s telling you what’s on the screen, and it’s really just an explanation of what the keypad is. There's some buttons.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: The layout of the buttons is as follows: There’s a square Okay button in the center and four navigation buttons around this for up, down, left to go back one page, and right to go to the next page.
NS: And that’s the – those are the buttons –
CF: Yeah. Let me see if I can hit right to go next.
NS: -- you have your finger on. Yeah.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Press and hold the center square Okay button. Please use the Up and Down buttons to go to the option you require and press the square Okay button to select –
NS: You don’t really have to listen to it all, which is rather annoying, but --
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Use the Left button to go to the previous page and the Right button to go to the next page.
NS: Try that right button again for me? The center. There we go.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: What would you like to do?
NS: So now, we’ve gone to the voting screen. It’s asking us whether we want to continue to vote or change the speech rate.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: -- or change the speech rate?
CF: All right. We will –
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Use the Up and Down button -- Continue to vote to select –
CF: Continue to vote. Okay button?
NS: Yup.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Please enter your eight-digit number using the on –
NS: I’m skipping past that screen because it’s asking you for a reference number, and I can’t remember what it is. So if you were a real voter, obviously, you’d have to enter some sort of unique reference number for yourself.
CF: Got it.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Alice Jones, press the square Okay -- Bob Turner, press the -- Claire Weevil, press the square Okay button.
CF: I don’t know who these people are, so this doesn’t mean anything when I choose it; okay?
NS: No. Yeah. And if it was a –
CF: And it confirmed for me. All right.
NS: Yeah. You’ve got the option to go back if it wasn’t Claire you wanted to vote for.
CF: I can do Left arrow.
NS: Yeah.
CF: Perfect. I think that gives us enough to get a good idea. Is there anything else that you want to leave us with?
NS: Really just to say that these products are commercially available with no minimum order quantity. So really, as far as the guys that specify these kiosks, the guys that build them, you know, these – the retailers and the companies, there’s no excuse for them not to include a device like this. It’s not expensive, and they’re available right now, so –
CF: So let’s say we got a local chain –
NS: Yup.
CF: -- and somebody’s thinking, they’re self-service –
NS: Yup.
CF: -- it would be nice to have – well, not nice. It would be a human right –
NS: Essentially. Yes.
CF: -- to have them be accessible. How much cost and labor is involved in implementing one of these at a -- for a mom-and-pop place that might have --
NS: For a mom-and-pop place –
CF: -- just two or three locations?
NS: -- not particularly expensive because they can buy just one, and it’s available from our website.
CF: Yeah.
NS: And obviously, we’re a manufacturer, so the more you buy, the cheaper the price becomes, but the average price of one is between 130 and 150 dollars.
CF: That’s it?
NS: That’s just the hardware.
CF: All right then.
NS: They then got to then obviously have their software work with the device, so they’re going to have to provide an audio interface.
CF: Right.
NS: Okay. So, but for the big guys, who are making millions and millions of dollars profit every year, it’s a drop in the ocean –
CF: They ought to be able to manage.
NS: They’ve already got the software running on the kiosks. To integrate this device wouldn’t be a big deal for those guys at all.
CF: Now, I do want to ask –
NS: Sure.
CF: -- you know, often, the first thing that happens after we make significant gains in accessibility is another group says, hey. What about us? And in this case, it’s people who are deaf-blind and don’t necessarily benefit from text to speech.
NS: No.
CF: Where do you see your company moving into the future to support even more people?
NS: We’ve tried – we’ve thought about that a lot actually. So – I don’t have an engineering brain, but my colleagues have. And obviously, yes. Because obviously, if a person is blind and deaf, usually they would, you know – it has to be touch, some sort of touch signing. And we’ve thought about braille displays and things. Then the other side of it is we have – you have to weigh up, I guess, in a real-life scenario, would a deaf-blind person be completely on their own, outside navigating the world, and if –
CF: Very possibly, they might.
NS: Yeah.
CF: People, as in this convention, I think you’ll find –
NS: Yes.
CF: -- that there are people that need support and there are people that are traveling totally independently in the world, and so –
NS: The braille display really is the way we would have to go, because obviously, it would have to be something that’s – that they can touch and feel.
CF: Uh-huh.
NS: You know, it would have to be that sense that we’re appealing to. So, I mean, we’ve certainly thought about having speech enabled, but obviously, speech would still need a way for – they could speak to the kiosk. There still needs to be a way for the kiosk to speak back to them, as it were --
CF: Exactly.
NS: -- via a braille display. That technology exists already –
CF: And the prices are dropping. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to visit some of the other exhibitors.
NS: I haven’t, but I know my colleagues – my engineering colleagues have been looking at it, and certainly, yes. Because they’ve looked at those devices over the years. And just like all technology, they’re amazed at how now accessible, in terms of price, those devices are. So no. One of those devices could certainly be installed on a kiosk right now and be designed to work with the software running on the kiosk and the interface that we provide. And also, the speech interfaces so –
I mean, in theory, the technology is there. It just needs to be combined into a kiosk.
CF: Is it Android or Linux under the hood?
NS: Under the hood of this, both.
CF: All right.
NS: And Windows. So there’s – certainly as far as –
CF: Well, because it depends on the vendor interface.
NS: Yes. Yes. Often, the – I mean, obviously, yes. Absolutely depends on what operating system the kiosk is running on. But our devices, because they connect via USB, are fairly universal in terms of what they’ll work with.
CF: Got it.
NS: You know, certainly the latest versions of Windows and Android and iOS, yes. It works with those.
CF: So here’s something to watch out for. We’ve heard this year that there is a push now to support braille displays as a human interface device, so kind of a universal protocol –
NS: Yeah.
CF: -- like with keyboards, like with mice.
NS: Yeah. Yeah.
CF: So maybe now, the time is right to start exploring braille –
NS: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.
CF: -- in addition to speech.
NS: I know. I mean, certainly, in terms of when there’s any kind of, what you say, a push and a drive in the market is when our engineers – obviously, they’re already aware of the technology because that’s their job.
CF: Yup.
NS: It’s now the time that their brains have to start working and come up with creative ideas. And we work closely with the Royal National Institute of Blind People, because we’re a British-based company –
CF: Yup.
NS: -- and those guys often provide us with, just like you say, the drivers of where they see the industry heading, what things we need to be looking at. And we like to work closely with them because we need to be guided by them to – so we’re developing the right products that people are going to actually be able to use and, you know, it’s what they need, so yeah.
CF: All right. Nicky, thank you so much for your time. Best of luck with your work and –
NS: Thank you.
CF: -- and have a wonderful convention.
NS: Thank you. You too.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
