Category: Ilias Project

Experiences in food

One of the main themes of this discussion was to relate and understand personal experiences of Blind and Visually Impaired persons in the human experience of having and making food.

Observations/notes:

1. Problems faced while cooking in the kitchen
   1. How to measure sugar or ingredients other than touching? Touching is unhigenic, hands are wet and so on.
   2. How to know when the glass or the pan is full while pouring liquids, for example milk in a glass?
   3. Pouring liquids, how to know where are the utensil’s positioning, so that liquid falls into the utensil?
   4. With liquids like milk or milk based – tea/coffee, the liquid sticks to the cup unless there is a spout. It is difficult even for sighted people (like Subir), so obviously its one of the difficult aspects of Insight members when they wish to make themselves a cup of coffee/tea.
   5. Liquid always spills for some members, no matter how careful they are.
   6. Filling bottles seemed to be easier as the bottle emitted a changing sound signature that helped get how much it was full. Also having a narrow mouth helped to pour contents into and out of it.
   7. Some members prefer utensils with handles, so that they don’t get burns while handling them. Some are forced to use utensils with no handles, and a set of pliers.
   8. Sanket says, when he’s cooking he does not want anyone to come into the kitchen. Because of the risk of messing up the memory map of utensils, devices, ingredients, etc. This is often observed in other areas too – people who use memory to access items Vs. people who use visual discovery. And this is also true for me, who is a sighted person!
   9. Sanket’s experience says that when cooking in oil, experiencing flashes of oil/water on to the face is a daily thing. This was also seconded by others. He recommends a face shield to prevent burns. Probable reason is that since smell is such an important sense in this case, one tries to get closer to the hot pan and so on… Needs to be discovered more.
   10. It seems as compared to vegetables, non-veg is easier to cook. This is probably because non-veg food like chiken/mutton/fish are large chunks and have structure that is distinguishable as compared to vegetables which might trun soft on heating/cooking or otherwise are hard to distinguish.
   11. Bhendi seems to be difficult to cook, as there is little smell signature.
   12. A hot topic was how to clean/wash rice or vegetables? Rice was particularly difficult it seems, separating stones from rice was a question of concern for Neha. Sanket suggested an instrument that he used to rinse rice. What that instrument is, is unknown as of now.
   13. How to cut vegetables, tomatoes, onions? Again, Sanket – the most experienced cook in that meeting (even including a sighted person) described an instrument he uses that efficiently slices vegetables in the sizes he wants. What this is is still a mystery!
   14. Using knife could be a dangerous activity, as the sharp edge is hard to distinguish and the food to be cut is often to be held by the other hand. A mistake can be very hurting!
   15. Neha mentioned that everytime she tried to cook, getting burns was a common experience. This is the saddest revelation I of that meeting. Since there is no way to know, other than touching, as to what is hot and what is not, this experience seems so obvious.
   16. Also, some expressed need to cook by one’s own at times, so that to be with oneself or not to bother others for such essential act as getting food of one’s choice.
   17. Kshitij mentioned that he has become habituated to doing small things by bringing face close towards those things so that he can see clearly. This is unfortunately very difficult when he has to cut onions where the pungent smell and vapors hurt his eyes for long!
2. Food types
   1. Food that can be eaten by hand is the best for members, probably because it can be felt by the fingers.
   2. Foods requiring cutlery is not so convenient.
   3. Foods, such as lasagna, which have multiple layers and have to be consumed in that order are also difficult.
   4. Ice-creams? — forgot to write about them 🙁
   5. Idli-samber seems to be very popular among the group. Idlis floating in Sambar! Neha reported finding idli pieces was tough.
3. Eating in a restaurant
   1. In a restaurant, the lack of accessible menus is one of the biggest issues.
   2. When the waiter or someone reads the menu to them, its not so easy. The person would like to hear and pause for consideration or thoughts, or go back to a previous item. However this is not possible when hearing out other people.
   3. Most often, members of this group prefer to order what others are ordering. Social pressure, of standing out while ordering or taking time to order, could also be playing a major role in the unpleasant aspects of going to a restaurant.
   4. Often this may lead to going on to restaurants where the menu is already known.
   5. Some restaurants publish their menu online, or on food delivery apps through which they can be accessible to members of B/VI community. It is an ironic situation.

Entertainment and leisure activities

1. Watching movies on Netflix with audio description of the scenes.
2. Audibles
3. Reading audio books
4. Cycling – tandem cycling whenever possible.
5. Swimming – this seems to be very much loved my some of the members.
   1. Problems with finding direction in water.
   2. Sanket and Neha mentioned that if the pool is crowded, then they don’t prefer to go into them, for the fear of bumping into others.
   3. Sanket mentioned he loved sea swimming, but there is an assistance boat required ahead of him so that he can get his directions in the water. For example when his head is above water he kind of hears out instructions on the directions or something like that, or listening to a boat’s engine ahead.
6. Running – problems faced are potholes!

Miscellaneous

1. Neha mentioned of a headache as she was listesning to this discussion. She mentioned that listening to more than an hour is not good for the ears – the only other sensation that B/VI members can depend on so much!
2. Everyone agreed that alternative senses should be used to reduce over dependence on hearing.
3. Some mentioned that key deliberately keep the phone away to avoid getting disturbed by phone calls, notifications, etc.
4. On Braille:
   1. Sanket mentioned he likes to use Braille, but the books are too heavy in kilos as compared to regular books – just because the Braille typeset fonts have to be so big. Compare 60-70 characters/line in an A4 writing, vs. to 20 odd characters on an A4 printed Braille paper!
   2. Another problem was with significant learning curve for new users. This discouraged people from learning and using Braille.
   3. Neha wanted some method in which she could take down notes while listening on the ear phones. She also wanted to re-read what she had written without resorting to audio, which was already in use as in a call. A good Braille system could have helped here.
   4. Manasvi mentioned that in the US, there is huge emphasis on Braille, where as in India there is hardly any. She mentioned that much of the places she went to had Braille signs and expected Braille literacy.
5. Kshitj mentioned problems faced with reading maths and other things. Suggested the use of Fresnel lens viewers for magnifying whole pages. These are also light weight and easy to carry. Expecting to learn about his experiences with such viewers.
6. Since some members have a non-visual disability, it has a severe consequences socially. Its hard for identifying faces and responding to gestures- leading to an unintended social awkwardness and rift.

Technology ideas

1. Can a watch be made that has the following features:
   1. Time communicated through touch senses, like Braille dots.
   2. Temperature of the object in front, measured through IR temperature sensors. similar to the ones used by doctors to measure body temperature on the forehead.
   3. A direction indicator to indicate north or important co-ordinates.
   4. An easy way to access calls, and other smartphone features without reaching out to the smartphone in the pocket.
2. A spoon that gives a braille type indication of temperature of the object it is touching? it could also give an indication of the food quality, spicy, hot, salty, sweet, color, etc. A smart spoon!

Experiences in education

The main theme of this discussion, held on 2^nd August 2020, was to relate and understand personal experiences of Blind and Visually Impaired persons as they navigate through educational systems. Of course this is not exhaustive because of limited time available for the discussion.

Observations/notes:

1. Access to written materials/books
   1. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech were often used by many of the members, and they hardly relied on the Braille system for interfacing with the knowledge sources (books).
   2. Audio books, ebooks, etc are available for many subjects. Google search seems to be the tool of choice.
   3. However not all physical books are available in audio format. And thus there is often this exclusion of materials.
   4. Text book or any physical book readers are accessible in the Pune university, but that is of not much help. Affordability of this technology is a big issue.
   5. Some papers are published in ‘protected view’ format that disallows right-clicking, copying, etc for the sake of implementing copyright and IP laws. Such sources are difficult to be accessible.
2. Exams:
   1. In a school or college, responding with audio recordings seems to be an acceptable way of answering exam question.
   2. For board exams, scribes were used. Because hand written format is the only accessible one (I guess as of now?).
   3. Zainab gave examples of Bhavya Shah who is blind but studied and scored in CBSE class 10 exams.
   4. Also of Haroon Kareem, who wrote SSCL paper without using a scribe and using a computer. He got A+.
3. General schooling:
   1. It was interesting to note that not everyone went to a special school with special teachers.
   2. Manasvi mentioned that an assistant was relied upon for describing the teacher’s black-board work into words. I wonder if all this had to be remembered on the spot, that it must be difficult to not have notes to refer to for later times?
   3. Due to our schooling system focusing on competitiveness, often the much needed mixed schooling experience is not available to the disability facing members. This needs to be explored and researched as to why this is so prevalent and what could be done to solve this.
   4. Due to severe paucity of non-visual learning materials, the progress of the disabled community in educational domains is severely compromized. The progress is often delayed by many years as compared to non-disabled people, leading to extended disabilities in future job prospects and so on.
   5. The lack of subject choices, due to limitation in mediums, makes one often choose textual intensive subjects such as in the humanities.
   6. Academia seems to be valuable choice for people with visual impairments, as it seems to provide a safe environment with more accessibility as compared to other avenues.
4. Regarding subjects
   1. Mathematics
      1. The most difficult of subjects to follow.
      2. Math requires writing symbols, and reading them. It is a highly symbolic language, very abstract. Without a medium, reading, writing and doing math is impossible or at least very hard. Verbal languages can be spoken, but math exists on a symbolic platform.
      3. Manasvi mentioned she had to let go of maths from 5^th standard.
      4. Zainab mentioned that math audio books are available till engineering graduation level.
      5. The overall group’s difficulty with math was pretty obvious.
      6. Neha, who developed visual impairments after completing her education, described that when she didn’t have visual impairments she didn’t quite like math, but now she does and misses doing math because of her visual impairments.
      7. Neha mentioned of someone who was taught math in school using papad!
   2. Maps and geography – being a heavily graphical subject, its obvious that it wont have many takers from the B/VI community.
   3. Sciences and its labs –
      1. Labs require experiments to be visually conducted, and thus are difficult for BVI students to follow.
      2. Sciences often heavily depend on visual inputs such as color, texture and images to convey their content. Hence these also are difficult to follow.
      3. Can science be done without the visual content? Because a lot of science is non-visual and abstract in nature! However, for the lack of an effective medium (alternatives to images, reading and writing), the content is hard to communicate.
   4. Field Visits – these probably bring on significant amount of uncertainties and non-familiarity in the environment and make things uncomfortable as a learning environment.
   5. Computer programming – All math done in computers is through simple english alphabets. Does an alphabet friendly math language exist, is it being practiced?
5. Future
   1. According to everyone, tools and options that are currently available for continuing education are hardly known to people and families encountering disabilities for the first time.
   2. There seems to be a severe lack of teachers and institutional support system for child education as well as adult education.
   3. Doctors and teachers who are usually the first institutional responders to a family facing disability, must be essentially educated to available technologies and possibilities. These people are often the ones who hold much power to guide, help and support people with disabilities ease into the flow of society.
   4. A common suggestion from teachers in this group meeting was for developing content considering accessibility as inherently bound to the content. Or in other words – accessibility is designed into the content right from the word go.
   5. Vernacular language users often have a hard time because the technologies and books available use english alphabets as their basis.
   6. Zainab and Dr. Homiyar mentioned about requirement of a keyboard that can help fast typing and notes taking, but which is small enough to be attached to a smartphone and be carried around without added accommodation. The QWERTY keyboard is great for this, but can this be made fordable and compact? Keys need to be big enough to type easily.
6. Technological prospects:
   1. Can a method be developed where non-visual reading and writing be possible without audio? Audio is great, but often sequential in nature, depends on silent surroundings and is not private. Such method must be able to help take notes, allow going back and forth between the written lines, editing them, scribble some images or shapes and re-read them as need be. It should also be able to convert these notes into audio format and digitize them for future access. It could be a parking space for thoughts, just like images and sketching does for visual thinkers. Can it be done??
   2. Some non-visual language needs to exist for easy math work. Can such things as geometry, algebra, etc be done in a non-visual way? Such ways, if they exist are too rare currently and require highly skilled teachers. The latter is difficult if there is no standardized procedure or method.
   3. A tactile screen could be desirable that can depict images that can be hand-felt and interpreted non-visually. Our touch faculties are amazing, and currently they are hardly used to compensate for visual shortcomings.
   4. Can touch intensive technologies be developed so that people with visual, audio and speech disabilities can access content through them?
   5. Smartphones are great, but different apps even if accessible individually, use their own styles of screens and buttons and options. Can a universal accessibility standard be developed for apps so that each app or service is uniform and similar to each other, thus being much easier for B/VI people to follow?

This was mostly about navigation and mobility.

1. Extended time to travel as compared to no impairment. Sometimes 2x or 3x times the normal.
2. Everyone has a different travel story, travel times and so on.
3. Going to shops that are crowded is difficult. While everything in the shop remains same, the number and movement of people becomes the unpredictable part.
4. Steps are counted to keep in track of path, direction to known shops and places.
5. Exchanging money
   1. Counting, verifying money notes is difficult.
   2. Digital payment is better.
   3. Division of note denominations in different parts of the wallet for easy repay.
   4. Quickness of exchange with reliability is missing.
   5. RBI has no consideration for B/VI users of its service. App provided by it isnt as great as other. However, natural note markings for universal accessible use was the responsibility of RBI designers. They have failed. (Q- why no laws or court cases were made to fight for this? Can this be done?)
6. Things slow down, from travelling to any kind of mobility to work, due to visual impairment. So vision is related to the general speed of life. Unless tech or good laws and cultural awareness evolve.
7. Technology discussed
   1. Jioglass
   2. Bluetooth Beacons for marking products in shops/malls and available on smartphone
   3. Explorer.ai – for autonomous checkouts at shops without any exchange of cash or card.
   4. Samsung phone with magnetic reader, where physical card swipe works as payment.
   5. Device for converting images into 3D prints that can be sensed by touch.
   6. JAWS screen reader?
   7. Picture-in-flash – http://piaf-tactile.com/
   8. Vernacular keyboards

New questions:

1. What is the cost of technology to help make life comfortable for B/VI citizens of India?
2. Which cities are the best for living in India?
3. Is there an institute that researches disability technologies in India? Any contact with them?
4. What professions are good for persons with visual impairments and blindness?

Participants – Ishan, Shweta, Manasvi, Zainab, Neha, Sanket, Aditya, Tanya, Rasika, Subir.

A summary of problems mentioned by the group –

1. Public spaces –
   1. Navigation while walking –
      1. Exploration of immediate surroundings
      2. Broader established locations are available through map apps, but smaller areas are not. Especially in India where informal shops are plenty and the backbone of life – these are not on the map.
      3. Dynamic structures, tree falls, road block signs can come up at any hour and any day with no concern for the visually impaired.
      4. Vehicles parked on footpaths could be a major hurdle.
   2. Transport – how to know the bus number, destination and route? Often bus people are too busy and the bus stoppages are too short and hasty that BVI people may not get good answers as to
      their questions. Seating inside the bus may be difficult too.
   3. Traffic signals are only visual (wherever they are) with no audio indication of its states.
   4. Road crossing?
   5. Elevators
      1. do not have announcements of floors.
      2. Do not have physical buttons in modern elevators, they are touch screens.
   6. Cabs – when booked, often the local landmark is not relatable as map-apps may not have a relevant local landmark. Map-apps resolution and accuracy being very poor(~10m), they do not helpful locally. A BVI person has to make external visual cues to cab drivers so that they could be identified from far.
   7. Last mile connectivity is always an issue, the biggest issue.
   8. Restaurants or food at home – hard to get to the desired food, especially using tools such as spoons as spoons can not sense. Food is distributed over a plate, and the plate could be displaced while eating, creating a need for relocating the plate by hand senses.
2. Obstacles on footpaths
   1. Dog poop or any other.
   2. Water/mud puddle.
   3. Surface roughness, potholes
   4. Vehicle prevention poles on footpaths
3. Appliances – complicated remotes with no concern for accessibility.
   1. TV remote – one uses fixed number for accessing fixed channels.
   2. Washing machines – poor interface.
   3. AC – do not touch my remote!
   4. Microwave.
   5. Many smartphone enabled solutions but products must be company specific – for example LG may have a voice activated app that controls LG TVs, the same can control microwave ovens, etc. However if Samsung is another device maker, then another app has to be installed for it.
4. Complaints against existing technologies for the BVI
   1. Smartphones are a great platform. Many good apps, but each is good for something and not good for all. So its very hard to keep so many apps and juggle between them. Ideally, 1 good app, that takes care of most of the requirements is necessary.
   2. Ultrasonics are not very accurate, and often overload the senses by creating additional challenges.
   3. Smartphone apps depend on the internet. When 3G-4G signal is not very good the whole system crumbles down and is dead weight.
5. Suggestions from the group.
   1. Smartphones are great, but they would have been fantastic if a keyboard could be attached to them so all keys and navigation through it would be super stable and reliable.
   2. Blackberry smartphone is the best, because it had a fixed keyboard.
   3. Can traffic signals be converted into beeping, so that pedistrians know when to cross or not?
   4. Markings on the footpath give signals through the feet as to what lays ahead. This could be more standardized and popularized?
   5. For partially blind people, could digital glasses with variable contrast, magnification and brightness settings be used? These could just take the normal image in front and modify is as per needs of the user.
6. Technologies worth looking into for new developers:
   1. BeMyEyes
   2. Google glasses
   3. Bose Wearables.
   4. Aftershockz Bone conduction headphone.
   5. Keyboards that can be attached to a smartphone
7. Individual technological interests
   1. Shweta – online courses and education for BVI community ?
   2. ? Forgot other such avenues discussed from other members. – subir

New Questions:

1. What is the perspective on privacy, as per personal experience?
2. As a visually able person i use subconscious and conscious visual cues to judge strangers as amicable or otherwise, and facial expressions as feedback as to whether what i an saying or doing is going OK with the others or not. How does this body talk happen for BVI people?
3. Hygiene, in personal spaces as well as in public, is a very visual sensory thing. For example, plates they received at the restaurants, tables, chair surfaces, in the washrooms, and so on. How do BVI people experience and feel about hygiene?
4. What kind of work and worklife would you like to have? Have you found it? And what could be the tools, skills and social construct necessary to achieve that work-life situation around you? Where can technology plug in?
5. As humans, we all need our escapades – avenues where we could shrug off our armour and thinking and self and just pleasantly absorb all good things without giving a thought – a space to be. Could you share your escapades, like movies, series, art, music? Do you practice or play – such as sculpture, clay work, pottery, painting, cooking, music making, etc?
6. How do you navigate the smartphone interface?
7. What is the relevance of Braille in today’s world? Do you wish to attach a Braille interface to a smartphone keyboard or is it no more a relevant concept?
8. How do you deal with hard cash, when at counters and stuff? Is there a way to count them, feel them, judge the denomination, etc. is there a technology for that which you use?
9. When you have to write, do you have to speak aloud to a mic? How about vernacular languages? Is there an app for Marathi, Hindi, Bangla, etc?
10. Do you have an actual physical book reader that can read you anything that’s in front of your smartphone camera say?
11. What are the feelings and thoughts when you meet strangers for the first time? Do you think face recognition will help?