Hi tom.
Even in the Uk, though the attitude of the rnib is held by some
organizations, there are some who are better. People may remember a few
years ago the organization Guide dogs organization I've always been a major
fan of for their generalized good attitude and habbit of pushing people to
try and achieve things, albeit accessible computer games are sort of out of
their perview. On the other hand, Action for blind people ran an audio games
contest as part of their accessible technology blog, and when i wanted to
test out an Iphone there was someone from the technology section of the
local society who was quite happy to come and do a demonstration for me.
It's generally a matter of finding the good ones and going with them, though
I confess the prevailance of the rnib, the fact that when the Uk government
or health service newly diagnoses someone as blind that! is who they are
sent to does somewhat get on my whick.
Indeed, last time I went for an appointment with an optomatrist (as I do
from time to time to check my eye pressure, remaining vision and
medication), I noticed a man and his wife sitting behind me discussing
talking watches in rather worried tones. Since they were uncertain about
watches and asked about the one I was actually wearing I broke the ice and
asked if they'd like a look.
I actually felt rather sorry for this couple since the lady had recently
gone blind, was in her late 50's but had lived a highly active life, going
on major camping trips around europe, cycling and the like, and had pretty
much been told she'd now have to stop.
Indeed, she was a little amazed when she heard I lived on my own, and even
more so when I explained I was at university finishing a doctorate since it
just hadn't been explained to her that someone without vision could do those
sorts of things.
While that didn't relate explicitly to games (this lady was obviously not
really interested in such), it does sort of show the mentality.
In particular one thing that annoys me slightly about Aadvertising zabat's
is their major insistance on "running straight from the cd!" as a major
factor, as if running a program from a program shortcut such as one of the
spoonbill games, pontes backgammon or Jim kitchins is beyond people, ----
heck, even if you were dealing with an absolute computer novice it'd hardly
be difficult to setup a shortcut key so all a person would have to do is
press say control alt 1 to run the game.
My mum is a complete computer novice, (she struggles with sending e-mail or
basically managing files on her machine), yet once I'd installed Bg Sudocue
for her (her being a big Sudocue fan), she's got no problems running it from
the programs menue.
I certainly have no problem with people producing card, word, puzzle or
other traditional games, there are people who enjoy such things and the fact
that they now come with innumerable peaces of technology (even my parents
new sky plus Tv box came with monopoly, battleships and solitare), but why
simplify more than needs be?
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
---
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