August 27, 2025 • 27 mins
We feature the final segment with Ian Bailey this week, as Sam hears from him about his work at UC Berkeley from immediately before and after the turn of the millennium.
You'll also hear from Vision Australia lead policy advisor Bruce Maguire, who tells us about a new survey Vision Australia is running to hear input from home appliance users who are blind or have low vision
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:21):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
When you do your research, think about how people who
are blind or have low vision are going to be
able to use your product and take advantage of the
opportunities that emerging technologies will present.
S2 (00:51):
Welcome to the program. This week we catch up with
Bruce McGuire from Vision Australia here to chat to us
all about a survey. Vision Australia is currently holding to
have your say on appliance accessibility for users in the
blind and low vision community. That conversation is coming up
(01:15):
later in the show, so make sure to stick around.
But before that, we feature the final part of my
conversation with optometrist, low vision pioneer and researcher Ian Bailey,
who caught up with me to chat about his last
40 years of work at UC Berkeley before retiring in 2014.
(01:41):
I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
S4 (01:48):
We started to do this was probably in the in
the 90s. We started to pay more attention to the
effects of lighting conditions on vision in people with sick eyes,
people with severe visual impairment. And we began routinely measuring
(02:10):
visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual field defects, measuring them
at different levels of illumination. Because very many visually impaired
people have a very pronounced dependence on the lighting levels
being right for them. And so we ended up with
(02:33):
a standard clinical technique that we liked to use. And
that was we would test the contrast sensitivity and visual
acuity and visual fields under standard illumination conditions. And then
we would repeat the tests when the patients had very
dark glasses on and the dark glasses were used were 4% transmission,
(02:58):
that is, they blocked out 96% of the light. And
so when you put these dark glasses on, it was
like going from a nice, brightly lit room to go
into a very, very dimly lit corridor. And so we
would look at the magnitude of the change in your
visual acuity, contrast sensitivity score, or the shape and size
(03:24):
of your visual field defects. And so that became part
of our clinical routine. And um, and while it's not
universally used, there are a lot of people doing that
out there in the world nowadays. Um, it's getting a
lot more attention and we'll move into the 21st century. Um,
(03:46):
and something that came up then was the classification of
vision for Blind Sports, that a colleague of mine, a
Pakistani optometrist. His name was Hassan Minto. He, he he
died about four years ago, unfortunately, at a young age
of 57. And he was absolutely fantastic. He did so
(04:09):
much good work for getting vision care and low vision
care to third world countries. Um, he was a big
man in every respect. Huge. Anyhow, he organized the World
Blind Cricket councils test series. In fact, it was run
in Pakistan. It must have been somewhere around about 2005.
(04:35):
And he chatted with me, saying that the way they
do their classification for the blind sports was terrible. And
so the World Blind Cricket Council people arranged a meeting
and we met in Brighton in England. Um, and it
was Hassan Minto, myself, an ophthalmologist and a young guy
(04:57):
who was a very active in it was a visually
impaired guy who was very active in blind cricket. Anyhow,
we went through and got to know how the vision
tests were being done, and we all agreed that it
was terrible. The methods were terrible and the classification system
was not good, and we went away and said, we
(05:20):
need to do something about this. And we had that
meeting in England in October. And then at the end
of that month, in October of must have been 2008,
I think, or 2007, 2007 that I went to a meeting, um,
at San Francisco at the Smith-kettlewell Institute of Vision Science.
(05:43):
And um, they had, um, an invited meeting there. There
were about 30 people, and these were people all interested
one way or another in prostheses to restore vision. These
are the sort of retinal implants or bionic eye systems.
And so this was in the early days of these
bionic eye implant systems. and it became very obvious that
(06:07):
the methods that they were using to. Test these very,
very low levels of vision were not satisfactory. They were
using things like hand motion and count fingers for some
of them. And this sort of made Hassan, Minto and
myself aware that we needed to do something about assessing
(06:28):
and getting scores of vision when the vision was very,
very poor. And so we developed the Berkeley Rudimentary Vision test,
and we had the blind sports classifications in mind when
we did it. But we also had the interest in
dealing with people who were having their sight restored, and
(06:51):
often coming from total blindness back to some functional visual
capacity using the stimulation from the bionic eye implant systems.
And we had done a little bit of work doing
vision testing of kids in African countries, and we were
(07:12):
dealing with visually impaired kids in schools for the blind.
And so some of the kids had had good vision.
They were simply myopic. They just needed glasses. But many
of them had severe visual impairment, and we wanted to
test that we could use for testing kids in in
environments where you don't have access to electrical power. And
(07:37):
we needed something that was very portable and easy to
use and could be used by people who don't have
a lot of clinical experience or skill. And so we
came up with this Berkeley rudimentary vision test that we
felt would be very useful for classification of blind sports
testing vision and before and after attempts to restore vision
(08:01):
using prosthetic devices and to use in developing countries where
resources were short and we needed a convenient test anyhow.
The Berkeley Rudimentary Vision tests consist of six cards. Each
card is 25cm², and we have one pair of cards
(08:24):
that have a single. Each card has a single E
on it, and we measure visual acuity for single tumbling
is the largest of the E's, is 15cm high, and
sometimes these E cards with the E, the single tumbling
E's are presented at one meter. But if the person
(08:47):
if the patient cannot see the large E at one meter,
we immediately move into 25cm. So we're holding it really
quite close and we measure single tumbling e acuity, and
this single tumbling E test is now become the standard
(09:09):
test for testing athletes and visually impaired athletes for blind
sports classification, and it's used by the International Paralympic Committee
and the International Blind Sports Association, and a few other
organizations related with different sports. Four of the other cards
(09:32):
have ratings on them. They have stripes, and as I said,
the cards were 25cm² on one of the striped cards,
there are only two black and two white stripes. Each
one is just over six centimeters wide. And on the
card that has the finest stripes, um, the stripes are
(09:54):
around about 1.5cm wide, and that's a great acuity test.
And we use that test only at 25cm. And the
patient's task is to tell whether the stripes on the
card are horizontal or whether they're vertical. And that test,
I said, as I said, was only done at 25cm.
(10:17):
If people can't see any of the stripes, we go
to the next set of four cards. And there we
have a test that's not really a test of visual
acuity of any kind. It's it's a test that we
will call white field projection. We have these 25 centimeter cards.
(10:38):
One of the cards has a black background, but one
quadrant one quarter of the card is white. And the
patient's task is to identify whether the white area is up,
up up and to the right or down and to
the left and so on. Then there's another card in
(10:58):
the series where, um, half the card is black and
half the card is white. And again, people have to
identify and where the white is located. Is it to
the right, to the left or up or down. And
then the remaining two cards. One is completely black. One
is completely white. These are only presented at 25cm. And
(11:21):
the person has to tell whether the card that is
in front of them, whether it's black or whether it's white.
And we call that black white discrimination test. And so
we have these tests that can be used, um, in
a clinician's office can be used out in the wilderness,
or it can be used in a research lab. There
(11:43):
are other tests that do a similar job, even a
better job. Um, there's a German researcher, Michael Bach, who's
absolutely terrific, who has a computer test that does a
lot of the same sort of unusual vision testing for
(12:05):
severely visually impaired people. But it's a computer based test,
and so it's more of a laboratory type test could
be used in the clinic, but it's more of a
laboratory kind of test. But it's not as simple, but
it's more precise than our Berkeley rudimentary vision test. And
we also put together some contrast sensitivity tests that are
(12:29):
printed tests. Again, we made them simple, but they're for
severely visually impaired people where we have a card that's
20cm by 30cm in size, approximately, um, it has a
grid on there with six cells, six, six, um, cells
on the grid. And three of the cells have a
(12:53):
grey disc, and the grey discs are five centimetres in diameter.
The person's task is to look at the grid and
find where the grey discs are, and on each card
there are different contrasts for the discs, and so there's
(13:14):
usually one disc that's fairly easy to find for most people,
even severely visually impaired, one that's intermediate and one that's
very faint. Anyhow, we put that together for testing people
who can't be tested with smaller targets, people with very,
very poor visual acuity. We'd still like to know something
(13:34):
about their contrast sensitivity. And so, um, that's sort of
a bit of an overview of some of the work
we've done in testing vision and working with vision in
severely visually impaired people over the last oops, oops, it's
40 years.
S2 (13:53):
Well, there you go. Okay. Unbelievable. Okay. Well, thank you
again for catching up with me. I do love hearing
from you. So, um, let's certainly keep in touch. If
there's anything else that I can, um, think of that
I'd love to chat to you about. And I'm sure
there will be. I'll be in touch, but, um. No.
(14:14):
It's been great to catch up with you again and
hear from you.
S4 (14:17):
Let me just say one little thing.
S2 (14:19):
To absolutely.
S4 (14:21):
To to wind up. Yeah. Um, so now I am
now officially retired. Officially. I retired in 2014. Um, so
it's essentially ten years of official retirement. Um, but I
still have some involvement in low vision work. I participate
(14:42):
in zoom calls with the students at UC Berkeley on
Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings, just before they go into
the clinic. And so we talk about the patients that
are coming up that day. And so I'm a little
bit useful in that but not always. And we have
there's a research project that we're we're trying to develop
(15:04):
some computer driven systems for organizing vision testing systems for children,
school kids in the third world. And so I have
zoom calls about that every second week.
S2 (15:18):
Well, yeah. As I said, great to catch up with
you again and, um, hear all the stories of every
single detail of what you've been up to at Berkeley
over the last 40 years, more or less, um, that
you've been involved there. But yeah, it's really great. So
thank you very much. I'm Sam Corley, and you're listening
(15:46):
to Talking Vision on Vision Australia radio. Associated stations of
Disability Media Australia and the Community Radio Network. I hope
you enjoyed that conversation with Ian Bailey there. If you
missed any part of that chat with Ian or you'd
love to hear it again. Talking vision is available on
(16:08):
the podcast platform of your choice or through the Vision
Australia library. And now back to the show with Bruce McGuire.
Have you recently purchased a new appliance for around the Home,
but haven't quite been satisfied with how accessible the features
(16:28):
of that appliance might be? Well, Vision Australia is very
keen to hear from you. They are currently undertaking a
survey looking for feedback from home appliance users who are blind,
or have low vision to pass their Fade back on
to manufacturers to make their appliances more accessible for the
(16:53):
blind and low vision community, and to have a chat
with us all about the survey. It's my great pleasure
to welcome back Lead Policy Advisor from Vision Australia, Bruce McGuire,
to Talking Vision Bruce, welcome back to Talking Vision. Great
to have you back.
S3 (17:13):
Thanks, Sam. And it's really good to be back on
the program again.
S2 (17:17):
Now today, Bruce, we're talking about something quite important, home
appliance accessibility for people out there who are blind or
have low vision and using their appliances and, you know,
the increased prevalence of technology and understand there's a survey
that Vision Australia is running currently. So tell us a
(17:38):
bit about that one.
S3 (17:40):
Yeah. Well just to give a bit of background, I
think many of us have experienced situation where we decide
we need to replace our washing machine or cooktop, or fridge,
or clothes dryer or dishwasher even, you know, even our
automatic coffee machine, and we decide which one we want
(18:02):
based on our research, what features it has and what
the what the budget is. And then when we go
to look at the appliance, we discover that we won't
be able to use it as blind people because it's
got an inaccessible touch screen, or it's got other kinds
of controls that make it unusable. And this seems to
be happening more recently. You know, in recent years, touch
(18:25):
screens are a particular culprit, but not the only one,
not some. There are some more visually oriented interfaces that
are also inaccessible. So for example, there's some one interface
has uh, all of the options displayed on the screen.
And as you press a button, the light moves from
(18:46):
one option to another, and if you can't see the light,
you don't know what option it's on. So there are
a range of visual interfaces. One of the things that
we want to do is to develop a campaign to
try and improve the experience of choosing and purchasing accessible
home appliances. And to begin this process, we want to
(19:07):
collect some data about what people's experiences currently are. Are
people finding it difficult to purchase appliances, or people finding
it easy to get appliances that they can use? So
we've designed a survey to gather some data around that.
S2 (19:22):
You've mentioned touch screens and visual components in there, but
I understand there's also companion apps that people have been
dealing with. And those have also caused a couple of issues.
What's sort of been the feedback there?
S3 (19:39):
Well, apps can be a great thing. And they and
they can be a not so great thing. I have
a washing machine that has a as a companion app,
and using the app I can do everything that you
can do with the display on the washing machine and
the app is quite accessible. I was able to test
the app before I purchased the washing machine because the
(20:01):
app has a demo version, so I was able to
kind of pretend I was using the washing machine and
do all the various things and try out the various functions.
So by the time I went to buy it, I
was pretty sure I'd be able to use the washing machine.
But not all apps are like that. Firstly, not all
apps have versions that you can try before you buy,
(20:21):
and manufacturers aren't always able to give any information about
whether the apps have been designed to be accessible to
people who are using screen readers like VoiceOver, or even
what you can do with the app and what you
can't do with it. Not all apps have the same functionality,
because it's important to remember that when manufacturers design apps
(20:43):
to use with their appliances. They're not doing it because
of accessibility. They're not doing it to make those appliances
easy to use. For people who are blind or have
low vision, they're doing it as part of a market
push towards connected appliances, so they don't need to make
the apps accessible. So we're finding that while some apps
like the one that I use with my washing machine,
(21:05):
some apps are very good, others aren't very good, and
there's really no way you can know before you buy
the appliance and try to use the app. And then
it's too late if you find you can't use it.
S2 (21:16):
And just to explicitly put it out there for our audience, Bruce,
what are the main aims that the survey is looking
to accomplish in terms of the feedback that it's able
to give to these manufacturers of these appliances?
S3 (21:36):
Well, I guess what we want to try and do
a number of things with the evidence that we get
from the survey, the first thing is to approach manufacturers
and say, look, people are having these kinds of issues
with your products. We're not asking you to kind of
take touchscreens away, for example, but we are asking you
to think about, you know, as you do research into
(21:56):
how this technology evolves over the next decade or so,
and technology doesn't stand still. So the touchscreens and the
interfaces we have in ten years time won't be the
same as the ones we've got now. So when you
do your research, think about how people who are blind
or have low vision are going to be able to
use your product and take advantage of the opportunities that
(22:18):
emerging technologies will present. The other thing we're hoping to
be able to do is to develop resources to make
it easier. When people are researching buying major home appliances, say,
for example, these are the questions you need to be
thinking about. These are the questions you need to ask,
you know, in a retail store. These are the kinds
(22:39):
of interfaces that you might come across, and these are
the ones that potentially you might be able to put
labels on. And these are the ones that you wouldn't
be able to put labels on. So so that's that's
another thing. Just going back to the first point, one
of the things we are also hoping to do is
to say to manufacturers, look, if you have an app
with your product, make sure you have a demo version
(23:00):
and make sure the app meets accessibility standards. We think
they are sort of relatively easy things to implement without
without affecting the cost of the product too much. But
having having the evidence from the survey is, is is
the first step. Because without that we can't say to manufacturers, look,
you know, 70% or 80% or whatever of people who
(23:23):
are blind or have low vision are having difficulties using
appliances because of controls like the ones you've got on yours.
S2 (23:29):
And, Bruce, if people would like to take part in
the survey, what's the best way for them to get
online and fill out the survey. Where's the best place
for them to go and how long will that survey
be running for?
S3 (23:46):
Well, the the link to the survey is Vision Australia.
Org survey. That's all one word and all lowercase vision
Australia org slash survey. But we haven't actually set a
cut off date for the survey yet, because we do
want to get as many responses as we can. But
(24:08):
obviously you know, if you are interested in doing it,
the sooner people can do it the better. So that's
Vision Australia. Survey. All one word and same. If anyone
would like to sort of talk in more detail about this,
I'm very happy for them to contact me directly.
S2 (24:25):
Okay, perfect. So if you do want to get in
touch with Bruce, give him an email at Bruce McGuire
at Australia. That's b r u c e dot m
g u I r e at Vision Australia. Or one
word to have a chat with Bruce. And this is
(24:49):
just the start of things. Bruce, in terms of this area,
I understand there's a bunch of next steps that the
advocacy and government relations team are interested in following up on,
so that's quite exciting. What sort of in the pipeline there?
S3 (25:06):
Well, once we once we get the results from the survey,
we'll be in a better position to kind of design
those next steps. But it will be around promoting greater
awareness amongst, say, retailers, for example, amongst manufacturers along the
lines of already already talked about. And then looking at
the kinds of resources that we can develop ourselves to
(25:28):
assist people. So we'll certainly be very keen to to
analyze the results of our survey say that so that
we can decide how we're going to proceed.
S2 (25:38):
I've been speaking today with Bruce Maguire, lead policy advisor
from the advocacy and government relations team at Vision Australia,
chatting to me today about the latest survey. Vision Australia
is currently holding in regards to accessibility around home appliances
(26:00):
for users who are blind or have low vision. Bruce,
thank you very much for your time. As always, it's
been great to chat. We could talk forever. I've got
so many different opinions and bits and pieces to chat about,
and I think I might take part in the survey
and have my say there, so looking forward to checking
(26:20):
that out. Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (26:23):
Thanks, Sam. It's always good to be on the program
and I look forward to coming back fairly soon.
S2 (26:33):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision Australia. That's talking vision all one word at
(26:58):
Vision Australia. But until next week it's Sam Culley saying
bye for now.
S1 (27:08):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
When you do your research, think about how people who
are blind or have low vision are going to be
able to use your product and take advantage of the
opportunities that emerging technologies will present.
S2 (00:51):
Welcome to the program. This week we catch up with
Bruce McGuire from Vision Australia here to chat to us
all about a survey. Vision Australia is currently holding to
have your say on appliance accessibility for users in the
blind and low vision community. That conversation is coming up
(01:15):
later in the show, so make sure to stick around.
But before that, we feature the final part of my
conversation with optometrist, low vision pioneer and researcher Ian Bailey,
who caught up with me to chat about his last
40 years of work at UC Berkeley before retiring in 2014.
(01:41):
I hope you enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
S4 (01:48):
We started to do this was probably in the in
the 90s. We started to pay more attention to the
effects of lighting conditions on vision in people with sick eyes,
people with severe visual impairment. And we began routinely measuring
(02:10):
visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual field defects, measuring them
at different levels of illumination. Because very many visually impaired
people have a very pronounced dependence on the lighting levels
being right for them. And so we ended up with
(02:33):
a standard clinical technique that we liked to use. And
that was we would test the contrast sensitivity and visual
acuity and visual fields under standard illumination conditions. And then
we would repeat the tests when the patients had very
dark glasses on and the dark glasses were used were 4% transmission,
(02:58):
that is, they blocked out 96% of the light. And
so when you put these dark glasses on, it was
like going from a nice, brightly lit room to go
into a very, very dimly lit corridor. And so we
would look at the magnitude of the change in your
visual acuity, contrast sensitivity score, or the shape and size
(03:24):
of your visual field defects. And so that became part
of our clinical routine. And um, and while it's not
universally used, there are a lot of people doing that
out there in the world nowadays. Um, it's getting a
lot more attention and we'll move into the 21st century. Um,
(03:46):
and something that came up then was the classification of
vision for Blind Sports, that a colleague of mine, a
Pakistani optometrist. His name was Hassan Minto. He, he he
died about four years ago, unfortunately, at a young age
of 57. And he was absolutely fantastic. He did so
(04:09):
much good work for getting vision care and low vision
care to third world countries. Um, he was a big
man in every respect. Huge. Anyhow, he organized the World
Blind Cricket councils test series. In fact, it was run
in Pakistan. It must have been somewhere around about 2005.
(04:35):
And he chatted with me, saying that the way they
do their classification for the blind sports was terrible. And
so the World Blind Cricket Council people arranged a meeting
and we met in Brighton in England. Um, and it
was Hassan Minto, myself, an ophthalmologist and a young guy
(04:57):
who was a very active in it was a visually
impaired guy who was very active in blind cricket. Anyhow,
we went through and got to know how the vision
tests were being done, and we all agreed that it
was terrible. The methods were terrible and the classification system
was not good, and we went away and said, we
(05:20):
need to do something about this. And we had that
meeting in England in October. And then at the end
of that month, in October of must have been 2008,
I think, or 2007, 2007 that I went to a meeting, um,
at San Francisco at the Smith-kettlewell Institute of Vision Science.
(05:43):
And um, they had, um, an invited meeting there. There
were about 30 people, and these were people all interested
one way or another in prostheses to restore vision. These
are the sort of retinal implants or bionic eye systems.
And so this was in the early days of these
bionic eye implant systems. and it became very obvious that
(06:07):
the methods that they were using to. Test these very,
very low levels of vision were not satisfactory. They were
using things like hand motion and count fingers for some
of them. And this sort of made Hassan, Minto and
myself aware that we needed to do something about assessing
(06:28):
and getting scores of vision when the vision was very,
very poor. And so we developed the Berkeley Rudimentary Vision test,
and we had the blind sports classifications in mind when
we did it. But we also had the interest in
dealing with people who were having their sight restored, and
(06:51):
often coming from total blindness back to some functional visual
capacity using the stimulation from the bionic eye implant systems.
And we had done a little bit of work doing
vision testing of kids in African countries, and we were
(07:12):
dealing with visually impaired kids in schools for the blind.
And so some of the kids had had good vision.
They were simply myopic. They just needed glasses. But many
of them had severe visual impairment, and we wanted to
test that we could use for testing kids in in
environments where you don't have access to electrical power. And
(07:37):
we needed something that was very portable and easy to
use and could be used by people who don't have
a lot of clinical experience or skill. And so we
came up with this Berkeley rudimentary vision test that we
felt would be very useful for classification of blind sports
testing vision and before and after attempts to restore vision
(08:01):
using prosthetic devices and to use in developing countries where
resources were short and we needed a convenient test anyhow.
The Berkeley Rudimentary Vision tests consist of six cards. Each
card is 25cm², and we have one pair of cards
(08:24):
that have a single. Each card has a single E
on it, and we measure visual acuity for single tumbling
is the largest of the E's, is 15cm high, and
sometimes these E cards with the E, the single tumbling
E's are presented at one meter. But if the person
(08:47):
if the patient cannot see the large E at one meter,
we immediately move into 25cm. So we're holding it really
quite close and we measure single tumbling e acuity, and
this single tumbling E test is now become the standard
(09:09):
test for testing athletes and visually impaired athletes for blind
sports classification, and it's used by the International Paralympic Committee
and the International Blind Sports Association, and a few other
organizations related with different sports. Four of the other cards
(09:32):
have ratings on them. They have stripes, and as I said,
the cards were 25cm² on one of the striped cards,
there are only two black and two white stripes. Each
one is just over six centimeters wide. And on the
card that has the finest stripes, um, the stripes are
(09:54):
around about 1.5cm wide, and that's a great acuity test.
And we use that test only at 25cm. And the
patient's task is to tell whether the stripes on the
card are horizontal or whether they're vertical. And that test,
I said, as I said, was only done at 25cm.
(10:17):
If people can't see any of the stripes, we go
to the next set of four cards. And there we
have a test that's not really a test of visual
acuity of any kind. It's it's a test that we
will call white field projection. We have these 25 centimeter cards.
(10:38):
One of the cards has a black background, but one
quadrant one quarter of the card is white. And the
patient's task is to identify whether the white area is up,
up up and to the right or down and to
the left and so on. Then there's another card in
(10:58):
the series where, um, half the card is black and
half the card is white. And again, people have to
identify and where the white is located. Is it to
the right, to the left or up or down. And
then the remaining two cards. One is completely black. One
is completely white. These are only presented at 25cm. And
(11:21):
the person has to tell whether the card that is
in front of them, whether it's black or whether it's white.
And we call that black white discrimination test. And so
we have these tests that can be used, um, in
a clinician's office can be used out in the wilderness,
or it can be used in a research lab. There
(11:43):
are other tests that do a similar job, even a
better job. Um, there's a German researcher, Michael Bach, who's
absolutely terrific, who has a computer test that does a
lot of the same sort of unusual vision testing for
(12:05):
severely visually impaired people. But it's a computer based test,
and so it's more of a laboratory type test could
be used in the clinic, but it's more of a
laboratory kind of test. But it's not as simple, but
it's more precise than our Berkeley rudimentary vision test. And
we also put together some contrast sensitivity tests that are
(12:29):
printed tests. Again, we made them simple, but they're for
severely visually impaired people where we have a card that's
20cm by 30cm in size, approximately, um, it has a
grid on there with six cells, six, six, um, cells
on the grid. And three of the cells have a
(12:53):
grey disc, and the grey discs are five centimetres in diameter.
The person's task is to look at the grid and
find where the grey discs are, and on each card
there are different contrasts for the discs, and so there's
(13:14):
usually one disc that's fairly easy to find for most people,
even severely visually impaired, one that's intermediate and one that's
very faint. Anyhow, we put that together for testing people
who can't be tested with smaller targets, people with very,
very poor visual acuity. We'd still like to know something
(13:34):
about their contrast sensitivity. And so, um, that's sort of
a bit of an overview of some of the work
we've done in testing vision and working with vision in
severely visually impaired people over the last oops, oops, it's
40 years.
S2 (13:53):
Well, there you go. Okay. Unbelievable. Okay. Well, thank you
again for catching up with me. I do love hearing
from you. So, um, let's certainly keep in touch. If
there's anything else that I can, um, think of that
I'd love to chat to you about. And I'm sure
there will be. I'll be in touch, but, um. No.
(14:14):
It's been great to catch up with you again and
hear from you.
S4 (14:17):
Let me just say one little thing.
S2 (14:19):
To absolutely.
S4 (14:21):
To to wind up. Yeah. Um, so now I am
now officially retired. Officially. I retired in 2014. Um, so
it's essentially ten years of official retirement. Um, but I
still have some involvement in low vision work. I participate
(14:42):
in zoom calls with the students at UC Berkeley on
Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings, just before they go into
the clinic. And so we talk about the patients that
are coming up that day. And so I'm a little
bit useful in that but not always. And we have
there's a research project that we're we're trying to develop
(15:04):
some computer driven systems for organizing vision testing systems for children,
school kids in the third world. And so I have
zoom calls about that every second week.
S2 (15:18):
Well, yeah. As I said, great to catch up with
you again and, um, hear all the stories of every
single detail of what you've been up to at Berkeley
over the last 40 years, more or less, um, that
you've been involved there. But yeah, it's really great. So
thank you very much. I'm Sam Corley, and you're listening
(15:46):
to Talking Vision on Vision Australia radio. Associated stations of
Disability Media Australia and the Community Radio Network. I hope
you enjoyed that conversation with Ian Bailey there. If you
missed any part of that chat with Ian or you'd
love to hear it again. Talking vision is available on
(16:08):
the podcast platform of your choice or through the Vision
Australia library. And now back to the show with Bruce McGuire.
Have you recently purchased a new appliance for around the Home,
but haven't quite been satisfied with how accessible the features
(16:28):
of that appliance might be? Well, Vision Australia is very
keen to hear from you. They are currently undertaking a
survey looking for feedback from home appliance users who are blind,
or have low vision to pass their Fade back on
to manufacturers to make their appliances more accessible for the
(16:53):
blind and low vision community, and to have a chat
with us all about the survey. It's my great pleasure
to welcome back Lead Policy Advisor from Vision Australia, Bruce McGuire,
to Talking Vision Bruce, welcome back to Talking Vision. Great
to have you back.
S3 (17:13):
Thanks, Sam. And it's really good to be back on
the program again.
S2 (17:17):
Now today, Bruce, we're talking about something quite important, home
appliance accessibility for people out there who are blind or
have low vision and using their appliances and, you know,
the increased prevalence of technology and understand there's a survey
that Vision Australia is running currently. So tell us a
(17:38):
bit about that one.
S3 (17:40):
Yeah. Well just to give a bit of background, I
think many of us have experienced situation where we decide
we need to replace our washing machine or cooktop, or fridge,
or clothes dryer or dishwasher even, you know, even our
automatic coffee machine, and we decide which one we want
(18:02):
based on our research, what features it has and what
the what the budget is. And then when we go
to look at the appliance, we discover that we won't
be able to use it as blind people because it's
got an inaccessible touch screen, or it's got other kinds
of controls that make it unusable. And this seems to
be happening more recently. You know, in recent years, touch
(18:25):
screens are a particular culprit, but not the only one,
not some. There are some more visually oriented interfaces that
are also inaccessible. So for example, there's some one interface
has uh, all of the options displayed on the screen.
And as you press a button, the light moves from
(18:46):
one option to another, and if you can't see the light,
you don't know what option it's on. So there are
a range of visual interfaces. One of the things that
we want to do is to develop a campaign to
try and improve the experience of choosing and purchasing accessible
home appliances. And to begin this process, we want to
(19:07):
collect some data about what people's experiences currently are. Are
people finding it difficult to purchase appliances, or people finding
it easy to get appliances that they can use? So
we've designed a survey to gather some data around that.
S2 (19:22):
You've mentioned touch screens and visual components in there, but
I understand there's also companion apps that people have been
dealing with. And those have also caused a couple of issues.
What's sort of been the feedback there?
S3 (19:39):
Well, apps can be a great thing. And they and
they can be a not so great thing. I have
a washing machine that has a as a companion app,
and using the app I can do everything that you
can do with the display on the washing machine and
the app is quite accessible. I was able to test
the app before I purchased the washing machine because the
(20:01):
app has a demo version, so I was able to
kind of pretend I was using the washing machine and
do all the various things and try out the various functions.
So by the time I went to buy it, I
was pretty sure I'd be able to use the washing machine.
But not all apps are like that. Firstly, not all
apps have versions that you can try before you buy,
(20:21):
and manufacturers aren't always able to give any information about
whether the apps have been designed to be accessible to
people who are using screen readers like VoiceOver, or even
what you can do with the app and what you
can't do with it. Not all apps have the same functionality,
because it's important to remember that when manufacturers design apps
(20:43):
to use with their appliances. They're not doing it because
of accessibility. They're not doing it to make those appliances
easy to use. For people who are blind or have
low vision, they're doing it as part of a market
push towards connected appliances, so they don't need to make
the apps accessible. So we're finding that while some apps
like the one that I use with my washing machine,
(21:05):
some apps are very good, others aren't very good, and
there's really no way you can know before you buy
the appliance and try to use the app. And then
it's too late if you find you can't use it.
S2 (21:16):
And just to explicitly put it out there for our audience, Bruce,
what are the main aims that the survey is looking
to accomplish in terms of the feedback that it's able
to give to these manufacturers of these appliances?
S3 (21:36):
Well, I guess what we want to try and do
a number of things with the evidence that we get
from the survey, the first thing is to approach manufacturers
and say, look, people are having these kinds of issues
with your products. We're not asking you to kind of
take touchscreens away, for example, but we are asking you
to think about, you know, as you do research into
(21:56):
how this technology evolves over the next decade or so,
and technology doesn't stand still. So the touchscreens and the
interfaces we have in ten years time won't be the
same as the ones we've got now. So when you
do your research, think about how people who are blind
or have low vision are going to be able to
use your product and take advantage of the opportunities that
(22:18):
emerging technologies will present. The other thing we're hoping to
be able to do is to develop resources to make
it easier. When people are researching buying major home appliances, say,
for example, these are the questions you need to be
thinking about. These are the questions you need to ask,
you know, in a retail store. These are the kinds
(22:39):
of interfaces that you might come across, and these are
the ones that potentially you might be able to put
labels on. And these are the ones that you wouldn't
be able to put labels on. So so that's that's
another thing. Just going back to the first point, one
of the things we are also hoping to do is
to say to manufacturers, look, if you have an app
with your product, make sure you have a demo version
(23:00):
and make sure the app meets accessibility standards. We think
they are sort of relatively easy things to implement without
without affecting the cost of the product too much. But
having having the evidence from the survey is, is is
the first step. Because without that we can't say to manufacturers, look,
you know, 70% or 80% or whatever of people who
(23:23):
are blind or have low vision are having difficulties using
appliances because of controls like the ones you've got on yours.
S2 (23:29):
And, Bruce, if people would like to take part in
the survey, what's the best way for them to get
online and fill out the survey. Where's the best place
for them to go and how long will that survey
be running for?
S3 (23:46):
Well, the the link to the survey is Vision Australia.
Org survey. That's all one word and all lowercase vision
Australia org slash survey. But we haven't actually set a
cut off date for the survey yet, because we do
want to get as many responses as we can. But
(24:08):
obviously you know, if you are interested in doing it,
the sooner people can do it the better. So that's
Vision Australia. Survey. All one word and same. If anyone
would like to sort of talk in more detail about this,
I'm very happy for them to contact me directly.
S2 (24:25):
Okay, perfect. So if you do want to get in
touch with Bruce, give him an email at Bruce McGuire
at Australia. That's b r u c e dot m
g u I r e at Vision Australia. Or one
word to have a chat with Bruce. And this is
(24:49):
just the start of things. Bruce, in terms of this area,
I understand there's a bunch of next steps that the
advocacy and government relations team are interested in following up on,
so that's quite exciting. What sort of in the pipeline there?
S3 (25:06):
Well, once we once we get the results from the survey,
we'll be in a better position to kind of design
those next steps. But it will be around promoting greater
awareness amongst, say, retailers, for example, amongst manufacturers along the
lines of already already talked about. And then looking at
the kinds of resources that we can develop ourselves to
(25:28):
assist people. So we'll certainly be very keen to to
analyze the results of our survey say that so that
we can decide how we're going to proceed.
S2 (25:38):
I've been speaking today with Bruce Maguire, lead policy advisor
from the advocacy and government relations team at Vision Australia,
chatting to me today about the latest survey. Vision Australia
is currently holding in regards to accessibility around home appliances
(26:00):
for users who are blind or have low vision. Bruce,
thank you very much for your time. As always, it's
been great to chat. We could talk forever. I've got
so many different opinions and bits and pieces to chat about,
and I think I might take part in the survey
and have my say there, so looking forward to checking
(26:20):
that out. Thank you very much for your time.
S3 (26:23):
Thanks, Sam. It's always good to be on the program
and I look forward to coming back fairly soon.
S2 (26:33):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision Australia. That's talking vision all one word at
(26:58):
Vision Australia. But until next week it's Sam Culley saying
bye for now.
S1 (27:08):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
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