[A2k] Kindle DX controls: Kindle leaves the Blind out in the cold again

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://www.healthnews.com/blogs/nicki/natural-health/kindle-leaves-the-blin=
d-out-cold-again-3083.html

Kindle Leaves The Blind Out in the Cold Again
By: Nicki
Published: Friday, 8 May 2009
As many of you who are college bound may know, Amazon is releasing a
new version of Kindle. This particular version has a larger screen,
and is primarily being marketed at a textbook reader. The marketing
has in fact been so successful that many universities, not the least
of which is Princeton, intend to present their students with a kindle
at the beginning of their first semester, preloaded with key textbooks
they will require.

Until this point, I have been rather ambivalent about the Kindle
protests. I was not incredibly keen on the fact that Amazon used DRM
files or that when you bought a book, you only bought the right to
access that book, and not a copy you could share as you could with a
hardcopy. However, I am finally beginning to become incensed. This
newest version does include the text to speech feature Amazon has been
advertising, plus the controls and interface are completely
inaccessible to the blind, making it all but useless.  And that is
quite frankly, unacceptable. Having access to usable textbooks in this
format could eliminate so many of the accessibility barriers blind
individuals face within higher education.

In order to obtain good quality Braille or audio materials, students
are often forced to preregister for their next semester=92s classes six
months early simply so they can get a list of their textbooks. After
the list is obtained, they either have to give it to their Disability
Services Office who will, if they are fortunate, have it transcribed
into Braille through a service hired by the college, or they must
contact Recordings For The Blind and Dyslexic, and send them a copy of
the book so they can make a recording which will then be sent back to
them. Downloading a textbook through kindle by comparison would only
take seconds to a minute.

This would eliminate the constant stress of worrying about whether
your books would reach you by the start of classes, even with all your
prior planning and work. And although it would still be advisable for
blind students to preregister, preregistering would not determine
whether they had the books to begin the next semester.

I believe that by not making their kindle fully accessible to those of
us with visual impairments, Amazon is making a grave marketing error.
There is a large willing market for this product, especially for a
version of the product specifically promoted as a textbook reader.
Yes, making the Kindle accessible would take time, money, and effort.
However, the profit Amazon would recoup would more than make up for
whatever initial investments had to be made. That should be clear by
the number of people who protested at the NYC author=92s guild meeting,
and by the fact that this is not fading from the blind community=92s
consciousness. We wish to be able to access books in the same format
as the sighted, and we are more than willing to pay.

I hope Amazon takes these factors into consideration when designing
the next version of Kindle. Having an accessible kindle would be a
winning situation for both sides, exposing a new market for Amazon,
and eliminating one of the greatest barriers which exists for blind
students within secondary education.
Nicki's View
Nicki is a typical teenager with a not-so-typical perspective. A
premature baby, Nicki is blind, has Cerebral Palsy, and Spastic
Diplegia. Follow her insights in her column, Nicki's View.




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Manon Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673