I’ve been using iOS and Android devices quite a bit over the last few years, and one thing I’ve become frustrated with is the lack of productivity achievable on these portable machines. They are great for consuming media but horrible for creation! Apple and Google would like you to think otherwise but it is simply too difficult to get anything done with such crippled software. Apple imposes limitations to save battery power or protect the user, and Android simply doesn’t have the apps that I need for producing content. This is why I got excited when I heard about the newest advancement in mobile computing.
I started hearing about these Tablets that have a full version of Windows 8.1 running on them. My thought was “Finally, a device that could fit into a coat pocket or small bag that would run all of my critical apps while on the road!”
I immediately started watching YouTube videos, reading reviews, and browsing user forums to find out everything I could about these modern marvels. I was really excited about finally having a real system with me at all times that could do everything from watch Netflix to producing an internet radio show.
My initial thought was to go with a small tablet like the Dell Venue 8 Pro or the Lenovo Miix 2 8. Both of these machines are small enough to carry on my person. I initially didn’t want to go with a 10-inch tablet because that would mean carrying a bag of some sort. However, after much thought I decided against the tiny 8-inch form-factor. My reasoning was that I would want a mouse and keyboard, hence I would still need a bag. Also, since I am visually impaired a bigger screen would make it much easier to see what I was doing… or so I thought.
To make a long story short, I wound up buying the Asus Transformer T100. This 10-inch machine has a detachable Keyboard Dock with built-in Trackpad, which negates having to carry around a Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse. I could also detach the screen and hold it up to my face when something was too small to see.
I went to Best Buy; otherwise known as Broke Guy, and tried out the Transformer. I should have known as soon as I walked in the door that Windows 8.1 was not going to work out for me.
The first thing I looked at was the Modern UI, which has colored tiles that give you live feedback from many of your apps. The text was tiny, nearly impossible to read. So, we set to try and increase the size of the text and icons inside the Modern UI.
I found that if you go to the Charms Bar, Settings, Change PC Settings, PC & Devices, then Display, there is an option to “Change the size of apps on the display that can support it.” You should be able to click a drop-down box that allows you to select Large. If you are unlucky like I was, you’ll find that your display will be too low of a resolution to allow you to change this option.
So, the Modern UI was not changeable in any meaningful way, which really upset me. So, I thought what if we changed the DPI scailing so that everything appeared bigger?
To do this, click on the Desktop tile. Now, right click on the background image and click on Screen Resolution. You will find an option that says “Make text and other items larger or smaller.” At this point you can select from a list of size percentages or create a custom DPI scailing setting.
We tried it at %200 which was still pretty small, but doable with my particular vision acuity. We tested at even higher settings but eventually text and dialog boxes would no longer fit on the screen if you make things too large. The downside to this victory is that the Modern UI appeared unchanged after modifying the DPI scailing!
This is when I started getting pissed off! How could Microsoft leave people with poor eye-sight out in the cold like this!? You might say, “But Byron, we’re not forgotten because we have the Ease of Access Center.”
Okay, so now I go into the Charms menu and click on Settings, then Ease of Access and turn on the magnifier. I would be lying if I said this experience was pleasant.
The magnifier draws a semi-transparent grey frame all around the screen, with a + in the upper left and right corners and a – in the lower left and right corners. You are supposed to adjust the magnification by clicking on the + or – signs and move your virtual camera around by clicking on the edges of the frame.
The frame they throw around the edges of the screen obscures everything, and the navigation system for controlling the magnifier simply sucks! I’ve never been a huge fan of screen magnification software but Microsoft really screwed this one up.
The other problem with my new Windows 8.1 tablet is that the keyboard was D.O.A. so I had to return it to Best Buy. I decided not to get another one because I was so pissed off with the terrible state of things on the Windows side. I ended up buying a MacBook Air because I’ve decided that Windows probably won’t be getting any better in the future.
Windows has been getting worse and worse for people with low vision since the introduction of Vista. I remember back in the days of XP it wasn’t very hard to change the system font to Arial Black and use the Extra Large theme to increase the size of menus and buttons. But now they have neutered Windows so much it isn’t even possible to modify how things look anymore.
Perhaps if I had stuck it out and gotten a replacement keyboard, I would have found ways to adapt to the changes as I always have had to do. It could be that using Classic Shell would have been a good alternative to the Modern UI. Maybe I should have considered getting 3rd party magnification software.
What do the rest of you think? Is Windows frustrating you with lack of support? Have they finally lost those of us who don’t care about eye candy? What will you buy when it’s your turn to upgrade?
I’ve been trying to get into the Windows 8 experience from the time Microsoft released the developers ISO well over a year ago and I find myself gravitating back to Windows 7 just because I am familiar with the interface and ease of use. I agree with your statement that Windows Vista/7 does have issues such as the built-in zoom panning feature will not work without enabling Aero and there is not a high contrast theme for Aero.
My confidence level for WIndows 8 was so low that when it was released I got a premium version and VMed it. I love the idea of apps and the concept of metro in general but even a sighted person has problems with the interface. One thing you did not talk about in your rant is Narrator. I am pleasantly surprised how well it works.
The Windows 8 interface is created to be touched and using a laptop with touch is much easier to use than the mouse and keyboard shortcuts. I have found many tutorials on the internet for Windows 8 and accessibility but most of these do seem to be for Narrator functionality and use.
I agree with you that the iDevices are consumption devices and not made for productivity but my blue tooth keyboard helps with that and I’m wondering when Microsoft Office is released for iDevices if that might not be a game changer. I find myself using Google Docs quite a bit for note taking and writing small documents.
I would have to agree with you that Narrator is definitely improved compared to older versions… and the voices they provide for free are pretty darn nice. However, since I grew up with no or very little special software to help me with my computing I am not really a huge user of speech. I do use speech a lot on my iPhone because there’s not much you can do to make things bigger on such a small screen… but things are a lot different on the Desktop. Speech usually comes in when I need to read something long or when my eyes start to fall out of my head from fatigue. Thanks a bunch for your comment and if you are interested in writing more on our blog let me know in the “Contact Us” section.
The reviews I just read afrter buying this piece of cr*** confirm what I have discovere’d to my utter disappointment ! you CANT alter the Font with any ease…
Back to Curry’s as this is rubbish and I’m gonna try to find another NC10 with windows 7 or get a Macbook Air… mibbe aall this jiggery-pockery is most suspect,
I read this blog post on Christmas Eve I found out on Christmas Day my present is a dell venue 8 pro whenever ups decides to actually deliver it I will try it out with the magnification that comes with windows and let you know how it works out for me.
Awesome, I’ll have to get you to write a follow-up post for the site! 😛
[…] obstacles, but to learn things that are of particular interest. For example, he wrote about his experience using Windows 8.1 and in another article, educates us pending changes for Medicare regarding how to obtain low vision […]
I totally agree with the frustration you felt with Win 8.1, Win 8. Win 7, while not perfect, allowed you to change many font styles, making it more accessible.
I have retinities pigmentosa and have the hardest time with the damn light grey fonts on white backgrounds or light blue fonts for the matter. Black fonts would be great and readable, but no…
80% of websites today suffer from low contrast. Very frustrating for many of us. The saddest thing is that eye strain for folks with normal eyes plus retinal damage from very bright screens, will make us all very equal in another decade at the rate we’re going…
Sad indeed!
I certainly echo your thoughts and your feelings of frustration at Windows 8 lack of real customability for users with low vision
and general vision impairment.
My experience with accessibility for the visually impaired in Windows XP was very rewarding. I loved how it let me customise Colours and Font sizes for many components, windows, titles, menus etc etc. It enabled me to use my computer quickly, efficiently, with minimum frustration and minimum eye pain and inflammation. In fact I set it up to my precise requirements in terms of colour contrast (text against background) and text sizes for individual components. What joy!
Unfortunately my next computer had Windows 8 pre-installed, and oh my, what hell it’s been. I am now stuck with a global high contrast setup (white text on black background) with just a few options of changing global text size, but very little for individual components. Furthermore, if I lower the resolution to also help me see, the operating system presents me with warnings. (I had no trouble in XP using a very low resolution while simultaneously being able to increase the size and change the colours of many components, and my customisations remained the default until I decided to tweak them. Brilliant.
Though I find the black b’ground I’ve been offered in Windows 8 wonderfully restful to the eyes it obliterates various items on web pages and has got me into considerable trouble when using shopping sites, banking sites, etc. Hair-tearing stuff indeed. Switching to a normal white background will reveal all the missing items, buttons and so on, but within 2 minutes of trying to see faded grey or pale blue text against a glaringly white background my eyes are streaming and tearing with pain. And that’s with the monitor’s brightness’ function turned well down. Acute photophobia is just one of my problems. (I have complex conditions that involve not only straight vision impairment but also overlaid with various eye pathologies and diseases, resulting in about 10% of fairly murky vision currently remaining).
Gone are the days when web writers used the normal contrast of optimally-sized black text on a light background. I repeatedly wonder Why the fascination of designers with tiny text in pale unreadable colours on bright white b’grounds? I can’t understand the lack of basic intelligence amongst designers these days. Common sense would surely dictate the importance of having all your visitors able to comfortably read your text and actually enjoy visiting your site.
Modern software designers also defeat me with their tiny entrenched font sizes in the palest of colours with no option for personal customisation offered the hapless user.
I truly abhor THE RIBBON that Microsoft I think introduced, but which many other software authors have been building into their programs. I don’t loathe it so much for its crowded and unsightly busy-ness, and its reduction of very precious screen space especially when working on laptops, but for its TINY FONTS and very difficult to see icons which greatly frustrate visually impaired users.
However my very greatest beef is with Microsoft’s latest incarnation of script-kiddies who have wiped out a number of the customisations that were so appreciated by low vision users in XP. What were they thinking of? I imagine that what seemed a trivial and possibly useless little option and something they personally couldn’t see the need for and hence got rid of, was to many of us a very important customisation option.
In view of rapidly-aging populations these days, I really think that all issues of vision-accessibility in Operating Systems should
be guided by panels of a) totally blind people, b) low-visioned, and considerably vision-impaired people, and c) aging people who are lucky enough to have nothing more than increasing levels of presbyopia to deal with. But even presbyopia which virtually everyone over a certain age will develop, presents a lot of problems in terms of the frustratingly tiny fonts and weak contrast used by website designers and also by Microsoft even in its help files and info boxes. Oh, the irony of struggling to read the tiny fixed font MS uses on its control panel pages and when telling us about the wonderful accessibility options they’ve provided for us. Were they too dim-witted to see the joke.
What I’ve always dreamed of was to have all windows and boxes on our screens be given scrollable text enlargement possibilities. This would include ‘File Explorer’ in Win 8 where I really struggle to see the names of my many files and folders. Why shouldn’t we be able to use our mouse wheels for text enlargement in any and all boxes. Scrollbars would automatically appear as we enlarged the text and thus we would be able to comfortably read the text. I know it’s quite possible for them to do this. I wonder why they haven’t. This system is fast and efficient. While I don’t like scrolling laterally on webpages because I’ve had to enlarge the designer’s tiny text, I would truly appreciate having this ability in the operating systems windows and boxes.
Yes I know there’s a magnification tool and a Narrator in Win 8, but these bring their own annoyances and frustrations and slow-down of productivity. They were tools I never needed in XP thanks to the many excellent customisations Microsoft allowed us back then.
I’d like to conclude by saying, that we are moving into a future with an increasing population of seniors who will have grown up
using computers. It’s now postulated by scientists that living to 120 will be on the cards for a fair few of us before too long. As
things stand, eyes will continue to age, and eyes will get all manner of pathologies afflicting them, often much worse than
the normal far-sightedness of old age.
What is the tech community intending to do to meet this fast-increasing need? So long as our operating systems and softwares are authored by bright-eyed youngsters with self-absorbed egoes there is going to be increasing resentment and frustration building in the aging populations as we all find ourselves bound ever tighter into a computerised and digitally-driven future.
So my plea today is to the creators of Operating Systems and to the authors of apps and other software, PLEASE project yourself forward into your own future and realise that you too will soon become a victim of your own lack of thoughtfulness and care for the needs of others. After all, what really counts is not the beauty of your design, not the attractveness of your UI, but whether your users can actually read your pages or do they just end up feeling angry, frustrated and unhappy with your website or your program.
If any designers ever read this, here’s a starter list of things not to do, and things to do from the viewpoint of one visually-impaired computer user:
Don’t lock people into FRAMES on your websites. Frames can render enlarged text unreadable.
Don’t use any fonts other than BLACK SANS SERIF FONTS in your programs and on websites. And do use plenty of ‘Bold’ black for extra emphasis wherever you can.
Don’t include RIBBONS in your software. Instead create clear drop-down menus with good-sized black text.
Don’t build BUSY or CLUTTERED PAGES. These further confuse the eyes of those who are already struggling to see and interpret.
Don’t lock users into white backgrounds when you build apps / software. Please provide customisation for dark backgrounds with light easy-to-read text (High contrast options)
DO try and build ‘STRETCHY PAGES’ when you design websites. By these I mean that however large a user makes your text it will still stay within the confines of his monitor dimensions. It’s really annoying to need to read a lot of text, having to enlarge it to do so, then finding that most of the lines can only be viewed by a lot of lateral scrolling. Very tiring and quite frustrating.
PDF files which are frequently created in very small text size are universally disliked and avoided by vision-impaired people for that very reason.
I’d really like for other people with vision problems to also write out their lists of do’s and don’ts here for developers and web authors who happen along.
I suspect that they’ve never been given a succinct list of requests describing what we really require and don’t require, so they remain unaware of the pressing needs of this growing demographic of users with poor eyesight.
Wow, this is an EXCELLENT comment, thank you so much for posting your thoughts. I’ve slacked off on writing for the blog and want to get to making more content. I think Windows 10 might be getting back to being tolerable but it’s too early to tell yet. I only installed the Insider Preview a few days ago and while some things were buggy or had some of the same stupid limitations as Windows 8.1, it has also done SOME things that make using it better. I again want to express my appreciation of this comment and would love to discuss getting your writings featured on this site. Maybe if we get a good core of writers to rant on a regular basis we can get this site off the ground!