One day earlier this week I suddenly had this feeling. I felt… ready. I felt like I finally knew enough to call myself a web designer and start doing something about it. I don’t know why it took that long, but it just did. In case you missed it, I started a blog about month ago that is meant to journal my progress in creating Spinning Wheel Studios. While I unfortunately still can’t give out too many details, suffice it to say that Spinning Wheel Studios is my diabolical plan to be a web designer, make some money, and not lose the precious disability benefits that I receive that actually make it possible for me to work.

I’ve written before about how well intended government policies fail at enabling and motivating people with disabilities to work. The thing is, people with disabilities are good workers. They’re smart. They’re creative. They have to be creative. It’s how they get by. Someone told me the other day, people with disabilities aren’t anything if they are not creative. Of course, I’m not talking about artistic creative or design creative, necessarily. I’m talking about problem solving creative (which, if you want to be all hip and cool, is what design is really all about). Whatever the case, I know now that I cannot work for a big bureaucracy doing a monotonous job while trying to stay under a certain salary limit so as not to lose my benefits. I didn’t graduate from the MBA program at Mississippi State to start a career which I know can never progress past a certain point. I’m just too ambitious for that. What incentive is there for a person with a disability who needs benefits (e.g., caretakers) to work when they know they can’t make over a certain amount of money no matter how good their work is? My answer to that question is “not much.”

Not to mention that if Medicaid changes one of its regulations, I could find myself suddenly making too much money in my job. Or what if I was offered a promotion with a salary increase that would put me over my income limit? Do I decline it? No. I’m not going to put myself in a working environment where I might have to decline a raise because I would make too much money. That’s absolutely ridiculous. I would rather keep my benefits and just do charity work.

So that’s why I’m going to go it alone. I’ve talked with a lawyer, and there is a (legal) way that I can establish Spinning Wheel Studios such that I will not lose any benefits. Now that I have secured a method by which I can be a freelance web designer, and have subjectively “decided” that I am now “ready,” I have been a lot more inspired to get things off the ground.

That brings me to my latest project. This past week I’ve been reading a lot about WordPress themes. Actually, for the past two or three weeks I have been thinking about WordPress a lot in general. I know, I’m a nerd. It’s just that WordPress is becoming a very powerful and affordable (free) system on which to build websites. Of course, just about anyone who knows anything about WordPress already knows this. But for the past year, WordPress sort of dropped off my radar as I was preoccupied learning other things. But now I’m bringing back attention to WordPress, specifically the new 3.0 upgrade and the concept of the theme framework. And so I have decided to build a premium theme for WordPress. I’ve built themes before, but this is going to be a bigger task. The idea is that the theme should be good enough to sell (that’s usually what a premium theme is). I haven’t totally decided whether or not I am going to sell it or just offer it for free. It’s really more of an experiment to figure out whether I am even capable of making a theme good enough to sell and if I would even like to do make themes on a more regular basis.

I should mention that there is some money to be made in the premium WordPress theme business. Some people have had great success by selling their WordPress themes on their own websites. Others have had success by selling their WordPress themes on a marketplace, where a percentage of each sale goes to the marketplace (usually a hefty chunk, 30 to 60 percent at one particular marketplace). I don’t have much of an audience so I don’t know if I could bring enough exposure to my theme on my own. If I do end up selling the theme, I will probably go with the marketplace option just because of the exposure. But you never know. I might be all hip and cool and support open source and the WordPress community by releasing the theme for free (as in freedom and price).

So my goal is to at least have a working version of the theme in two weeks. That is, Friday, August 27, 2010. On that day, I plan to install the theme here at “I hate stairs.” I am planning to keep a daily log of my progress at www.blakewatson.com. Honestly, I am somewhat of a procrastinator and if I can actually do this in two weeks, I will be proud of myself even if I don’t make any sales.

Cheer me on. Maybe I’ll give you a copy of the theme for free. :-)

Times change. Ever since the unveiling of the iPhone several years ago, I knew that one day, I was going to have one. I was already a Mac user and an iPod user; becoming an iPhone user was the next logical step. But much time would pass before I would finally justify the cost of owning an iPhone. At first, I considered it to be more of a luxury than anything else. But as time passed, I began struggling more and more with using my computer. The number one reason? Typing. I finally lost the ability to type. It’s almost as if it happened overnight. I then went on a search to find a way to type without a keyboard. After trying various methods, I settled on KeyStrokes, an onscreen keyboard for Mac, to do 99% of my typing, occasionally using voice recognition software for long form writing. It proved to work well and it still does.

In Fall 2008, my brother got an iPod touch as part of a back to school deal when he purchased a MacBook at Ridgeland’s then 1-year-old Apple Retail Store. I began to become more familiar with various apps that were available. Fast forward to Summer 2009. One of my long time attendants purchased an iPhone. That’s when I really started getting interested. By this time, there were tons of apps on the App Store with tons coming out all the time. The “there’s an app for that” campaign was in full swing. My mind began coming up with all sorts of ideas about how iPhones could be helpful to people with disabilities, especially people with severe mobility impairments like mine. One iPhone fearure that really appealed to me, however, was built in. It was as if Apple engineers had peered into my mind and figured out what I needed before I even knew what I needed. Because the iPhone has one quite literally tiny feature that is perfect for someone with almost no strength and no mobility: an ultra-small keyboard with zero-force, touch-sensitive keys. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?

Of course, the catch is that the keyboard is on a phone, not my Mac. Well, remember all those apps I was talking about? There is one that lets me use the awesome iPhone keyboard to input text on my computer. But it does so much more.

Meet HippoRemote Pro: The Web Surfing, Tweeting, Universal App Remote. Here is how the HippoRemote Web site describes the app:

HippoRemote Pro turns your iPhone and iPod touch into a wireless keyboard, multi-touch mouse and remote control for all your favorite apps. It works over Wi-Fi, giving you complete control of your media center Mac/PC from anywhere in your home or office.

Not only does it let me type with the iPhone’s keyboard, it also functions as a trackpad and has specialized control interfaces for controlling applications on your computer like iTunes and Firefox.

It’s worth mentioning that typing solutions designed especially for people with disabilities can easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. You might be saying “Yeah but your iPhone was $199 plus your ongoing wireless plan.” True. But, by way of comparison, the KeyStrokes onscreen keyboard cost $299. And my phone is also an iPod, a Web browser, and a mini, mobile computer. Many times, a consumer product can be used creatively to achieve better results than a product specifically designed for a disabled consumer.

I have had my iPhone for exactly two weeks. I just purchased HippoRemote Pro today and this blog post was the experiment for trying it out. It has worked well. Definitely worth the five bucks I paid for it. It has been an exciting two weeks and I can’t wait to see what other apps can be used for assistive technology purposes. Who knows what exciting discoveries are in store? At least I can say this:

Want to use your iPhone to type on your computer? Yeah, there’s an app for that.

Windows comes with a free Onscreen Keyboard that works perfectly. Surely Mac wouldn’t let themselves get beat out…

Now Windows is getting even further ahead of Mac in the on-screen keyboard game. The new keyboard has an improved look and feel. It is resizable. And, possibly the biggest change, it has text prediction built right in! There is one catch. Prediction isn’t included in the Home Basic version of Windows 7. Still, this is huge, especially when compared to Mac’s Keyboard Viewer. But don’t take my word for it. See the new keyboard in action:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows7/Type-without-using-the-keyboard-On-Screen-Keyboard

The book discussed the advantages of not being a huge company. Though the publisher is giving the book away free one chapter at a time via the Web site, I could not wait to get my hands on the rest of it. After a little investigation, I discovered that the book was published by a “digital agency” called smashLAB. They seemed cool enough, so I used a strategy which has failed me when dealing with other (larger) publishers: I simply asked for an on-screen version. In a tweet, that is. What normally would have taken weeks, or months, or never, took only an hour and a half. It went like this:

blakewatson: Hey @smashLAB, is there a way to get a digital version of “Speak Human” on my Mac?

smashLAB: @blakewatson Not at this time. For now it’s paperback, Kindle, and free in browser. That said, I hear Amazon is working on Kindle for Mac.

blakewatson: @smashLAB I’d gladly buy the paperback, except I can’t hold it.

smashLAB: @blakewatson That’s the first good reason I’ve received for a screen-only version. Let me see what we can sort out. :-)

smashLAB: @blakewatson Do you run Parallels or have a dual-boot machine?

blakewatson: @smashLAB I run Vista with VirtualBox.

smashLAB: @blakewatson In that case, you could install this: http://gu.nu/Ify and then get this: http://gu.nu/aI9

Problem solved.

Okay, I admit that it is not the most ideal fix. I’m not really looking forward to doing my reading inside Windows Vista, but hey, it is a fix and it is better than struggling with a paperback. I may wait for Kindle on Mac or until the Web site version is posted in its entirety. Probably whichever comes first.

Of course, the interesting point in all of this is that smashLAB lived up to the ideas in the book. Guess you will just have to check out the book to know what I mean. ;-)

VoiceOver on iPod nano (Source: apple.com/ipodnano/features/voiceover.html)

I don’t know how the folks at Apple decided upon VoiceOver as an iPod feature, but I would like to think that they were fully aware of the need for universal design. People who have blindness or low vision will find this feature useful. People who have mobility impairments, like me, will appreciate not having to hold the iPod up to look at the screen (since, you know, I can’t). Oh yeah, and people who are running or working out or doing any number of activities can find out the name of that cool song on their new album without missing a beat.

It’s all good

Universal design works for everyone, thus the term. Fellow disability blogger, Cheryl, gave us an interesting case study of universal design at her school’s gym. The moral of the story was that it didn’t take wads of cash and new stuff to make the gym more accessible. It took some planning and thoughtful consideration for various types of people with differing abilities. The end result was more space and better access for everyone.

The iPod nano’s ability to announce the title and artist of the current song reused pieces of technology that was already on the Mac.

VoiceOver dialog in Mac OS

VoiceOver itself, is normally used to navigate through Mac OS (and apps and Web sites) without the need to see the screen or the need to point and click with a mouse. Its purpose is mainly to provide full (or almost full) control of Mac OS to people who have blindness or low vision by allowing them to use the keyboard to navigate. VoiceOver uses the text-to-speech capabilities of Mac OS to read labels and Web site text. Reusing this technology on the iPod for a seemingly different purpose demonstrates that more accessible design can benefit more than people with disabilities. A possibly better example is the iPod shuffle, which has been making use of VoiceOver for the last few months.

How VoiceOver works on the iPod shuffle (Source: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/voiceover.html)

I’ve highlighted the nano because I tend to think it is a more popular model than the shuffle, but VoiceOver on the iPod shuffle solves an interesting design problem. The iPod shuffle is made to drop all the barriers of the usual clickwheel and screen interface and get straight to the music. There was formerly a play button and a couple of skip buttons. It was ultra-small. You could put it on, hit play, and go. The downsides were that you could not see title and artist information and you could not have multiple playlists—two essential portable music features. VoiceOver and an unobtrusive button on the earbuds now enables listeners to know what’s playing and be able to navigate multiple playlists on the fly. By holding down the earbud button, VoiceOver lets you know what’s playing. Keep holding it and it will read off your playlists. Users of the old shuffle and Mac users who are blind have similar user interface challenges. They both need to use the interface without a screen. VoiceOver solves that problem for both users!

I hope at this point you are thinking to yourself… Aaaaaahhhhhhhh. :-)

Where to go from here?

This section represents my wishlist of Apple accessibility features. For starters, I would like to see the navigational capabilities of the iPod shuffle expanded to the other iPod models. As it turns out, my iPod interface challenge is similar to the examples I previously described. I normally use an iPod nano when I’m traveling long distances in my van. I hold the lightweight iPod in my lap and I can operate the clickwheel, but I can not lift the iPod to view the screen. As such, I normally create a long playlist, set it, and forget it. However, I would love to have the ability to navigate through my playlists using VoiceOver. An unrelated feature I would also love to see is the ability to use iPhone and iPod Touch keyboards to control my Mac. For people who have fine motor skills but not the strength to make large movements, a super-compact, touch keyboard would be a great feature.

Now I turn it over to you. Give us an example of universal design that has made your life easier or suggest an accessibility feature (of anything) that you would like to see.

And here is a transcript:

Meet Sue.
Sue is an employee.
Sue is an employer.
Sue is a manager.
Sue is a mentor.
Sue is a teacher.
Sue is a writer.
Sue is a speaker.
Sue is smart.
Sue is funny :-)
Sue is exciting!
Sue is engaging.
Sue is a wife.
Sue is a mother.
Sue is a person with dreams.
Sue is a person with aspirations.
Sue is a person with a disability.
Sue is a person.

(at 60 seconds, video fades to credits)

Created by:

Blake Watson
www.blakewatson.com

Matt, here. Like my brother Blake who runs this blog, I have some trouble typing, although the word “trouble” may be kind of stretching it. I can use a regular laptop-sized keyboard, but it takes a little work to get my left arm on the table to be able to operate the keyboard. And after a while of holding my arm on the table, my hand starts going to sleep. Therefore, when I’m at home relaxing from a hard day’s work, or when I’m being lazy, I just use the mouse and an onscreen keyboard to type unless I’m writing a lengthy e-mail message or a treatise on things like … well, onscreen keyboards.

This is where the problem begins. Short story: Apple computers’ “Keyboard Viewer” sucks primordial fluid. Long story: After reading countless news articles on how Twitter will change our lives forever, I’m sitting at home making def tweets and checkin’ the latest on Facebook, when suddenly I have to type a capital letter (because I’m proper like that and haven’t yet fallen into the habit of typing everything lowercase). And not only do I need to type a capital letter, but I also have to type @sexxybbaby4x92. However, the modifier keys (e.g. caps lock, shift, control, command, etc.) on Mac’s Keyboard Viewer do not stick when they are clicked. That means you can’t click on “shift” then on “2″ to write the @ symbol or “A” to write a capital A. What I usually end up doing is holding down the shift button with my righthand index finger while I aim the cursor and click the mouse with my middle finger, a stunt that has taken me months to master.

But yesterday, I got sick and tired of it all, and I asked Blake where on the Internet I could download Keystrokes, which is what he uses. He was like, “Just google it, but it costs like 300 bucks. Get Voc Rehab to pay for it.” “Screw that,” I said. I’m not going to pay $300 just to be able to push the dang shift key. Windows comes with a free Onscreen Keyboard that works perfectly. Surely Mac wouldn’t let themselves get beat out on something so simple as an onscreen keyboard with a functioning shift key. Surely there was a way to make the infamous Keyboard viewer work. Aha! Sticky keys. Just turn sticky keys on and it will work.

Nope. OK let’s see. Aha! Just hack the system. Well, two problems here: 1) I don’t know how to hack the system even with good directions, and 2) it still doesn’t work that well for people who have tried it. For instance, on the Apple discussion page, one disgruntled customer “even tried trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.KeyboardViewerServer.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist, but these were also no help at all.” Whatever that means, but you get the point.

OK, I’m starting to get tired at this point. I begin to slowly accept defeat. As one blog commentor said on The Apple Blog, “Apple just informed me that I’m the proud owner of a useless Macbook–there is no fi[x] for the shift problem on the onscreen keyboard.” So many others got the same response from Apple, with one person even claiming Apple told her they would fix it on the next version but never did.

So then I’m like, “Well that sucks. Looks like I’m going to have to search for some kind of freeware point-and-click keyboard program.” Nope, they all cost money, and I’m not paying money when it is my Windows-given right to be able to operate the onscreen keyboard shift key for free, dadgumit.

In a conversation with my brother, I found out the key difference between the Windows Onscreen Keyboard and the Apple Keyboard Viewer. Windows means for its keyboard to function as an accessibility feature. That is, it is meant specifically for people with disabilities who have trouble typing. It is even listed under “Accessibiity.” However, the Keyboard Viewer’s primary funtion is to be able to find the hidden keys. In other words, if I hold down shift, I can bring up the Keyboard Viewer and see that shift+2 would be @ or that option+N would be the ˜ sign or that shift+option+? would be the backwards question mark (¿) that comes in so handy when I’m typing my Spanish essays. So, the Keyboard Viewer is not really meant as an onscreen keyboard, and indeed it’s not even listed under the computer’s “Universal Access” section. There is another section where you find it (“International”).

“That’s stupid,” I said. And for good reason. Apple has lied to me! I say this because in the “Accessibility” section of their Web site under “Physical & Motor Skills,” it says the following:

Onscreen Keyboard

If you find it easier to use a pointing device than a keyboard, you can use the Keyboard Viewer to enter text. You’ll find this onscreen keyboard in the International pane of System Preferences. Keyboard Viewer floats above other applications (so you can’t misplace it). It can be displayed small or big, and, though you “type” with a mouse or other pointing device, it otherwise works just like a physical keyboard.

LIES!!! It is not a real onscreen keyboard and it does not work just like a physical keyboard.

The real issue that bothers me is that many people all over the Internet have complained to Apple about this and Apple just won’t fix it. It’s so utterly simple. Just make the modifier keys stick on the Keyboard Viewer. Simple, simple, simple. Yet Apple either makes empty promises about fixing it or refers people to outside software they have to buy. Come on, Mac. You’re gonna let PC be the disabled-friendly computer? The Keyboard Viewer may seem like a small feature no one really cares about, but hundreds of people with disabilities who have trouble typing have found the Windows Onscreen Keyboard extremely helpful, especially when they are at public computers in places like libraries, where they haven’t installed $300 software. Yet, when we go up to a public Mac computer with a physical keyboard that may be too big for us to handle, we have to rely on the Keyboard Viewer as the next best thing to an authentic onscreen keyboard. C’mon.

If you’re dying to know, the only free thing I have found on the Internet is something called Kiiboard that looks like this on my computer screen:

Kiiboard

Yeah, it’s huge, and you can’t resize it either. And don’t make the mistake of calling this an onscreen keyboard. As the site I linked to says, it was “originally designed for use with the Wii Remote IR mouse driver for Mac OS X.”

If you happened to have found any other better free alternatives, please let me know. Thanks.

http://vimeo.com/4894750

If you can’t view the video, or you just want to know more about the tablet, feel free to email me or comment.

One of my tools is voice recognition. Since I’m on a Mac,� I’m using MacSpeech Dictate. But it doesn’t work well. It’s buggy, for one. And most of the time there is someone in the room with me, which is just weird. My other tool is the on-screen keyboard called KeyStrokes. It’s actually been very useful, especially for writing code. But typing long form can be tedious and not fun. And I think writing these blog posts should be fun!

So I took some of my newly acquired graduation money and bought a tablet. The Bamboo Fun tablet by Wacom to be exact. The tablet takes my handwriting and turns it into type. It’s also cool to use in Photoshop for drawing and sketching. In fact, I’ve been writing this blog post with it. My hand is a little bit tired and I’ve had to go back and correct it a lot, but overall it’s been nice. It takes some time getting use to. My handwriting was terrible at first, but it has improved some during the course of writing this post.

I still don’t know what the final solution will be, but between voice recognition, an on-screen keyboard, and this tablet, I’ll find a way to keep writing.