Running with a guide dog

I will never forget how much more freedom I experienced all of a sudden when I got my guide dog, Baldwin from guiding eyes for the Blind. That was approximately the time when Guiding Eyes started to train running guides. This means that a blind or visually impaired person can take up running as a sport and do it independently with a guide dog. The white cane is not for running, it is simply dangerous.

One could ask, why not just run with a regular guide dog? After all dogs enjoy running. This is why it is not possible: a guide dog by default is trained to recognize and avoid obstacles at a walking speed. When one would run with a guide dog, practically it would ask the dog to do something she has never been trained to do. It would be confusing for the dog and dangerous for the blind person. During the training program, Guiding Eyes does ask dog handlers not to run with their dogs while guiding, unless the dog has been specifically trained for that. By default, Guiding Eyes does not train running guides, but anybody can request one.

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How my 3d buildings have changed my perception

Recently I wrote about my new 3d building project. Today I would like to talk about how it has changed my entire perception of what buildings are.

Unlike in most of my posts, I cannot talk about blind people in general, because each person is their own story and background and education. I can only talk about how it made a difference in my own personal life, but hopefully even through my own story some concepts will be useful for others when creating an experience for blind people, for example a tactile museum exhibit.

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Is your audio guide part of the problem or the solution?

Audio guides can be used in several environments, and if they are structured well, they can provide immense help for visitors. A few ideas where audio guides can be used are:

  • Museums and galleries

  • City tours

  • Parks

  • Zoos and aquariums

  • Botanical gardens

However, I have experienced many instances when otherwise good audio guides did not fulfill their promise and created a less than desirable experience, either because they had a conflicting message on the target audience, or they did not properly serve the people they meant to help.

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Travel Visions Aloha, adventures for the blind

The other day I came across a new article about Travel Visions Aloha for the Blind, which is an organization providing adventures and experiences for blind people, at the moment primarily in Hawaii. Though there are some similar organizations around the world, definitely not too many, so I contacted the owner, Marri Murdoch to learn more about her organization.

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Accessible Social by Alexa Heinrich, book review

I have come across a book that is a true gap filler in the industry:

Accessible Social

a beginner’s guide to creating inclusive social media content, by Alexa Heinrich

Why am I writing about this on a travel blog? Because it is a must read, or must use for people who use social media in the travel industry. For that matter, for anybody who uses social media in general, regardless of whether a casual Facebook user, or a marketing specialist.

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Accessible Social by Alexa Heinrich, book review

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Accessible exhibit at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin

Last summer I was introduced to Ellis Lane, a curator from the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin. At the time he just started working on a project to make artwork accessible for visually impaired people. The Digital Reimaginings exhibit opened recently. Ellis didn’t only create a fully accessible program, but I really appreciated his approach to it, where I had the honor to collaborate with him.

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Difference between the accessibility page and the accessibility statement

There is often much confusion about how to write an accessibility statement or how is it different from your organization’s accessibility page. While there aren’t any rules set in stone, and ultimately you need to create these documents to serve your organization’s needs, generally there is room for both. They each serve a different purpose. In this article I will show you how to approach the two documents.

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Designing an inclusive and accessible alarm clock

Let’s play a design game. The task is to come up with the most accessible, most inclusive alarm clock.

I used to give this task to my classes when I was teaching at IBM, and we had the most thought provoking conversations.

There are no good or bad ideas here. But consider that the more inclusive you make it, the more features you add, the more expensive it will get, at some point it will be unreasonable. But the more you compromise on features, the less people will be able to use it.

Let me set one more rule here, it is a standalone clock. Anything it can do it is part of the clock you design. Otherwise, it would be easy to say that you will just connect to it using your phone and an app, which probably would be your most inclusive solution.

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Miniature 3d printed buildings for blind people

Miniature 3d buildings for blind people

It has always fascinated me how to explain what a building looks like to a blind person. But as they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, a tactile experience is also definitely more accurate than a thousand words. For that matter, the two together is the best approach.

Since I couldn’t find a resource where I could get the models of 3d buildings, I created my own.

Smithsonian Castle

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