Jakarta, Kartunet.com - Most disability communities celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities with activities like walks or art performances. However, this was not the case for Kartunet Community Indonesia. This community of young people with disabilities made a breakthrough by celebrating this special day with a sharing and discussion session on technology accessibility for people with disabilities at the Pusdiklat building, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia (01/12).
During the event, which was attended by various blogger communities, Dimas Prasetyo from Kartunet.com explained how visually impaired individuals can use computers, type, even surf the internet, and become bloggers. By using screen reader software, visually impaired people can do all of this. “Perhaps for sighted people, typing or tweeting is easy. But for the visually impaired, it's not that simple. Visually impaired individuals must convert visual displays into audio,” said Dimas, who has been visually impaired since 6th grade.
On that occasion, Dimas demonstrated how visually impaired people use screen reader software. Dimas typed a sentence on his laptop and asked the participants, most of whom were sighted, what sentence the screen reader had spoken. Laughter and murmurs filled various corners of the room. Apparently, the sighted participants of the discussion could not clearly hear what the screen reader was saying. Dimas admitted that when he first learned to use a screen reader, he also found it challenging. But the more he and his visually impaired friends used computers with screen readers, the more accustomed they became to the screen reader's voice. This, of course, was new knowledge for the sighted bloggers.
In addition to explaining the use of screen reader devices on computers, the discussion session also included sharing about accessibility features on the iPhone. Andira, a visually impaired iPhone user, shared her experiences. She explained that many technology product manufacturers are now beginning to understand the need for accessibility features. The goal is for these products to be usable by everyone, both people with and without disabilities. The iPhone itself comes equipped with a voice over application that can be used by the visually impaired, as well as accessibility features for the hearing impaired and those with motor impairments. Andira also explained the steps for iPhone users to activate these accessibility features. “With Apple products, we no longer need to install additional software because the accessibility features are already built-in,” explained the University of Indonesia law student. (RR)