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[Retrofit]

The nature of wikis and forums means good information can be lost uickly. I think this is an important topic, because if this is an education project, not a laptop project, thenit needs to address assistive tech.

One reoccurng theme i hear is the key board is to small, and the response is 'for whom? not for children!"  If the rebutal to that is "what about children with progressive MS?" what does OLPC have to say that?

I'm not trying to bash OLPC, I love this program, however I feel this rebuttal makes their stock answer seem inappropriate if this is truly an educational project.

Chuck

[LesleyT]

I agree. 

1 in 5 Americans have a disability.  The percentage is higher in the developing world. 

In the XOs favor, it is customizable to those who  have the abilities and knowledge and resources to do so. 

I would like to see a good AT incentivie with the XO for the developing world.  That means hardware and software for adaptations. 

I wonder about using a switch with an XO for scanning for those who find the keyboard too small.  I have a switch adapted mouse, but I gave my switch away.  I'll see if I can find it somewhere. 

I would also like so see something like intellikeys adapted for the xo.

[Gabey8]

One USB keyboard that was brought to the first Philadelphia XO Users meeting was a one-handed keyboard. It worked fine, without any prior need to set anything up. The user plugged his keyboard into my XO and used it without difficulty.

This is why I have high hopes for the XO to be used in conjunction with braille displays and/or keyboards, presuming said devices are USB-compatible and presuming that a screen reader can be adapted for use on the XO.

[LesleyT]

ooohhh... what kind of keyboard was it?  There's one called a frog pad I really want.  And it's green!!  One of my friends only has use of one hand and I've been wanting to see her try it. 

My knowledge of Braille devices is very fleeting.  I did one unit of study on AT for people with low vision/blindness, but that's only enough to know I don't know anything.  I got to pick up and hold the devices and go oooohhhhh......  that was it. 

I would think that a BAT keyboard? (is that it?  the Braille chord keyboard?) hooked up to an XO would make input much more efficient.  More efficient than this damn hunting and pecking I'm doing now on my keyboard. 

A guy who is very big into complex graphic open-source environments -- a designer of Croquet said to me on a chance encounter in an airport that there is no reason for us to copy the inefficiencies of the actual world into the virtual.  I think of that when I think of AT and the XO.  There is no reason to try to adapt the XO when it is so customizable that it could be transformed into a machine that fits the indivdual.  In the case of AT for people who are 100% blind, that might mean doing away with sugar totally, because it's so graphics based.  Instead, using the built in camera as a scanner/reader might be an avenue to go down.  Linux via screenreader would sound like garbage, but it might be time to look into a plain-english text operating system, or a shell like sugar that is based on text, not graphics.  Or for that matter, making the graphics audible when they are moused over -- either by screen reader or by a signal sound that is iconic -- like, well, an icon. 

Of course, would be different for people who have enough sight to read the screen but not the teeny tiny text of the screen. 

The other major issue is output into Braille -- difficult on a machine that doesn't do any printing at all right now.

I guess my point is that although I'm trying to work with the xo, I think that all of us could totally transform it into something that isn't just adapted, but something that really fits the needs of the users.  I think I am just inspired by how this whole device was designed with a specific consumer in mind -- a child in the developing world.  Why aren't more devices done this way?