Interviews with users and Apple staff about the accessibility features of Apple Vision Pro for people with disabilities
Apple Vision Pro is Apple's first goggle-type AR device, and while it allows basic operations with eye and hand movements, it also has a wide range of accessibility features that enable other operations. Andrew Leland, a writer who has severe visual impairment, interviews users who actually use the accessibility features of Apple Vision Pro and engineers involved in the development of accessibility features at Apple headquarters.
What is the Apple Vision Pro? A Lifesaver for Disabled Users
Maxine Collard is a PhD student in neuroscience and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Collard has a genetic condition called oculocutaneous albinism , which means she was born with white hair and skin and poor eyesight that cannot be corrected. As a result, she had to crane her neck forward to see the PC screen, and the distance between her face and the monitor was always just 2 inches (about 5 cm).
The first time Mr. Corrado came into contact with PC accessibility was with the iMac's 'Magnifying Glass' function. Mr. Corrado was so impressed by the fact that the screen, which he had previously had to get close to in order to read, could be instantly enlarged to his desired magnification with a simple operation that he felt it was a revelation.
However, Apple Vision Pro is equipped with eye tracking, so you can operate it with your eyes and hands, so you no longer need to stretch your neck and bring your face close to the monitor as you did before. In addition, Mr. Corrado has strabismus and could not operate the conventional eye tracking well, but by turning on the 'one-eye tracking' accessibility function of Apple Vision Pro, he was able to operate it without any problems.
'With Apple Vision Pro, I can finally work on my laptop with my feet up on a bench and in the sunlight. Or more precisely, I can work on a giant 4K screen that floats in an ergonomically perfect position, and I can move it to wherever I want whenever I want. It's the answer to decades of prayers to the gods of accessibility,' Corrado said.
Apple Vision Pro also includes a variety of accessibility features, including voice and joystick control, selection actions for any sound, pointer control with your head, wrist or fingers, color filters, and hearing aid support.
Leland attended an internal event held as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. At Apple headquarters, he was given a pamphlet called 'Apple Accessibility Passport.' This pamphlet had icons labeled in Braille printed in 3D, showing the categories of Apple's accessibility products. In addition, there was also an icon for Apple Vision Pro, which suggests that Apple also recognizes Apple Vision Pro as a device for people with accessibility needs.
Dan Golden, a software engineer working on cross-platform accessibility at Apple, said he has low vision and had problems using eye tracking during the development process. He learned that a colleague was developing a 'pointer control' that uses head direction instead of eye tracking, so he actually installed the pointer control on Apple Vision Pro and tested it.
Leland also spoke via video call with Jordin Castor, a blind software engineer who works in visual accessibility quality assurance testing at Apple and who uses VoiceOver, Apple's screen reading feature for Vision Pro.
Castor described his experience using VoiceOver on Apple Vision Pro to demo a game where players play virtual hand-pan drums: 'I was hitting the drums with my hands as if I was playing them on the table in front of me! It was something I'd never experienced before in the accessibility space.'
Leland also interviewed Sarah Hellinger, Apple's head of accessibility. Hellinger, who has been a disability rights advocate at Apple for more than 20 years, said, 'Apple aims to provide 'wow and delight' to all users, including those with disabilities.'
At the time of the interview, Leland thought that Hellinger's comments were just Apple's standard marketing comments. However, when he saw Corrado happily operating the Apple Vision Pro, he realized that Hellinger's comments were not just a nice thing to say.
Leland said that 'surprise and delight' means enabling people with disabilities to enjoy the same experiences as able-bodied people, and that Apple Vision Pro symbolizes Apple's approach to viewing accessibility for people with disabilities not just as a feature, but as a quality of experience that should be continuously improved.
Related Posts:
in Hardware, Posted by log1i_yk