Laura Boniello Miller:
So we're recording the session, and also live transcript. Okay, so welcome to today's webinar; Accessibility Features to Consider & Avoid When Developing an Accessible Kiosk. My name is Laura Boniello Miller, and I am the Vispero corporate business development manager, and I am in the area of kiosk accessibility. So some housekeeping items in case you didn't quite notice this session is being recorded and we will email everyone the recording after the event. We have live captions available, so please feel free to use them as needed. Lastly, if we have time for a live Q&A which we should, please use the Q&A box and we'll answer as many questions as we can at the end of the presentation. Excellent. So in this webinar, I will interview Peter Jarvis, who you see here, a senior executive vice president and founding director of Storm Interface. 
Peter will answer some questions about what accessibility features should be considered when developing an accessible kiosk. Mistakes to avoid, and at which point in your project, you should be thinking about proper assistive technology components. Also, joining us today from Storm Interface, Hey, Nicky. Nicky Shaw, US operations manager, and point of contact for US-based inquiries. So let me first set the stage, kiosks are found in most every vertical industry and serve a variety of functions. So it's important to note that kiosks are typically a combination of hardware and software locked down into a closed system in which users can not add their own devices or software to assist them in navigating or interacting with the machine. So whatever is on the machine is what they're able to use. 
This has done for security purposes, so that a malevolent individuals can not grab user data through gaps in security, via putting a USB on the kiosk or using the additional spyware or any other keystroke monitoring or anything like that. So this matters because a kiosk deployer, when they decide what they're putting on the kiosk, that's the only thing that can be used by someone, and so that's the only hardware and software available to a user. So what you include on your cast deployment is the only accessibility feature or accessibility device software that can be used by the kiosk user. So Peter, why is this information important? Oh, you need to unmute, did I keep you muted? Let's see. There you go. 

Peter Jarvis:
Okay. Can you hear me now?

Laura Boniello Miller:
Yap.

Peter Jarvis:
Good. I think it's probably important to understand the problem because obviously when we talk about kiosks in public places, we talk about accessibility. Why would a kiosk not be accessible? So we're really going to address quite a simple problem, or it's a simple problem to explain maybe a more complicated problem to solve. The problem briefly is those who for any reason cannot see, read or interact with a touchscreen are effectively denied access to the products, services, or information that's being offered through that kiosk, through that self-service technology. So to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Veterans Rehabilitation Act, we have to provide an alternative means for those people to access the information products and services. They have to be able to access that information through non visual means, for instance. 
So basically what we're going to address today is first of all, how can we improve accessibility to the content that's being offered on the kiosks to those people who can't see read or physically interact with the kiosk. Does that explain the problem fairly clearly?

Laura Boniello Miller:
Absolutely. I would note that this is a clickable to international standards, as well as ADA, which you mentioned. And also I did the introduction, but I didn't actually say what Storm Interface is, and I just want to point out for those that are sighted can see that your background includes that input device in the back. So Storm manufacturers accessible technology input devices for kiosks. And so that's sort of where this interview is sort of a great combination because TPGi and the Vispero parent company do JAWS screen reader which is the screen reader that you put on kiosks so that it can audibly text to speech it can share with the content is on the screen. And then the input device that Storm has there is the way that you can navigate through the technology, the screen. So they work together. 
You can use an input device if you're sighted and not need a screen reader. However, if you're not sighted and you have an input device, you need a screen reader to hear what's happening. If you are not sighted and you have a screen reader on a kiosk, then you need an input device to navigate it because you can't use a touchscreen. So just sort of a little bit of background on why we asked Peter here today, why we asked Nicky here today, and why they add a different perspective than just the JAWS screen reader perspective or the kiosk accessibility perspective that I typically bring. Peter is a much more ... sort of, he comes from the other side of things in terms of the hardware and the input device. Is that a good summary, Peter?

Peter Jarvis:
Absolutely. In fact, it's a very important point you made here, is I come from the dark side, I come from the mechanical engineering side of the business. But one of the most basic pieces of information that we can share is that it doesn't matter how good the hardware interface is. We're very proud of the tactile interface that we generate, but without the right software, without the right customer interface software in place, the mechanical devices is useless. It's not an exaggeration to say that we've had highly qualified engineers who have purchased one of our tactile audible content navigation devices, and they've expected to bolt that to the front of the kiosk and plug it into USB port. For that device to somehow magically understand what their kiosk function is and to generate content and audio programs and expect it to actually be a compliant device and installation straight off the bag.
Certainly, when you take a USB device such as a Storm Interface audio NAB, when you connect it to USB port, sure it will move a cursor around the screen. It will allow you to click on a button on the screen, but it can't generate the audible content, the audible program that you need to describe to the customer, nor can it describe the physical audio files that are going to get played through a pair of headphones, for instance. So it's very important that when people are planning an accessible interface to their kiosk that they realize that this is a close working combination between the tactile discernible keypad device and the software, the customer interface software that is going to provide that content for the customer. Typically, I have to say it's much easier to bolt the mechanical device into place than it is to generate accessible software.
There are three options to people who want to make their kiosk accessible, and they're looking at the customer interface software. It's a generalization, but most people, their first consideration is, can I adapt what I've got to be accessible? Can I somehow add audio programs for instance to my existing software to make that compliant with the standards. There are people who have tried to do that, some have done it with varying degrees of success. In my experience, it's always a compromise. Second option is start refresh. You write a piece of customer interface software from scratch with all of the audio tags and all of the content and all the navigation functionality that's needed that sometimes works very well, but it takes a long time. That's a huge investment in time and resources to develop that customer interface.
The third option is to use a piece of middleware. I might hesitate to call is middleware, but it's a layer that will sit between the traditional customer interface and the hardware navigation device. I know that for instance, Jules kiosk is sometimes described as screen reading technology. But I actually prefer to describe it as a screen descriptor because it goes much further than just reading text on the screen. The piece of middleware has to put things in context, put them into prioritized order and often try to put things in context in terms of how they're going to actually interface with the customer interface. So making sure that the software solution is chosen and developed in time for implementation is very critical. Hardware exists pretty much without needing too much customization or change the software needs to be very carefully considered.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Peter, I would actually add though that's true from the beginning. If you remember the hardware from the beginning, you know that input device is needed, but to retrofit the hardware is actually going to be much more expensive and much more time consuming if you don't include the accessibility features to begin with. Is that something to consider?

Peter Jarvis:
It is something to consider, so without acting like an advertisement for product so for instance, there are choices. We have components that have to be installed into the kiosk at the time of manufacture, so that has to be considered in advance of the attempt to be compliant. It's part of the kiosk design process. However, we do have clients who find themselves facing lawsuits, for instance, for kiosks that have already been deployed and are in service. So we have to offer some mechanical solutions that can be retrofitted that are in effect external USB peripherals, that can sit on their own brackets and holders and casework, and simply get plugged in as an external peripheral device. They will work out the box in that once you connect to the USB port, you will be able to move the cursor around the screen and click on buttons.
But again, unless the software can be retro installed, you've only got half the solution. So again, I would say we do manufacture retrofittable solutions in my experience, they're always a compromise. There's nothing actually that can substitute for designing a kiosk from the ground up to be accessible, but that highlights another problem, Laura. I'm not going to be politically correct here. The problem is that we often need to sell accessibility to the wrong people, so for instance, typically when a mall owner, for instance, employs an architect to design a new shopping mall, they want to put kiosks in the sleek and minimalist and very designer issue and, kiosks a bit like cars. They describe the site guys to design at any one time. We've seen kiosk evolve, huge monolist right down to minimalist screens on a sleep pole and nothing else.
So, it's very difficult sometimes that the people were having to persuade to make their systems accessible, really don't want to do it. They don't want to compromise the look of the kiosk by bolting something onto it. The finance guys really don't want to add any cost to the kiosks and management level, that's not something they really want to do. Like didn't set out initially to make their kiosk accessible. So when they learn that there are these laws in place that require them to provide this accessibility, they approach it somewhat reluctantly. So we're selling to people who really don't want to do this, but they have to. So again, if we can design accessibility in right at the start of the kiosk design process, we can make sure that it's unobtrusive, that it doesn't create negatives for majority of the users or for the kiosk designers or even the shopping mall who's deploying those kiosks.
So yeah, you're right, the earlier we can start the process designing accessibility the easier it is most successful it is. Let's put it this way, every delay in designing it makes it more expensive, costs of adding accessibility later on in the kiosk design program rise exponentially. So it almost makes me grow when we talk with a new client and we say, "Okay, so what's the timescales on this? What should be our priority?" It's normally, well, we got these kiosk out there and we've got a core set deadline to have these kiosks compliant. We don't want to spend too much money by the way, so you have almost an impossible serve of design parameters. So yeah, we would always say to people, please talk to us at the earliest possible opportunity. 
There's lots of resources out there. I mean, for instance, I know Paciello Group has some excellent best practices, guidelines, which you make available to people which can help people to address the software side of it and how that software will interact with the hardware. Use those resources, look at them early in the design process, as early as you can. The other issue, I guess, is there have been some serious mistakes made including by Storm. We made lots of mistakes in the early days and we had to learn by those mistakes. And the first mistake we made was not to listen carefully to the people who are going to be using these kiosks. I'll give an example of that. 
We made an assumption that we were catering largely for blind people, we didn't consider that huge proportion of the population who couldn't read for other cognitive reasons or physiological reasons. We assumed that people had no sight, we didn't really teach partially sighted people. In fact, I can remember in the very early days we have one client who said to us, "Well, when we have someone who's blind, who's using the kiosk, we might as well turn the screen off. We don't need to worry about the content on the screen." And it didn't take us for a long to realize that most people who are registered as legally blind still have some [crosstalk 00:18:27] perception. So that they were very aware of screen changes. 
So we needed to encourage the software designers to make the screen content as dynamic as it could be. So that people who had some residual light dark perception or were fully sighted, but just couldn't read the text on the screen, could actually see what was happening on the screen. Could sense those responses to their actions on a keypad. So there are a lot of resources out there. There are a lot of people who freely offered advice to help people who are trying to implement accessible kiosks, get this right first time. Sorry, I'm talking at you Laura. I don't mean to do that.

Laura Boniello Miller:
No. You're good. You said a little bit about what we usually get wrong, but one of the things that you've mentioned earlier was the Veterans Rehabilitation Act. I know that we had a question come through about that, just was curious if you can expand on that. I know a little bit about the fact that it just passed, fairly recently it sat for a while, right?

Peter Jarvis:
Bet it did. The law was enacted in 2010, I believe from memory without looking at my reference material. But it had to be implemented by 2016. So it was in 2016 that the regulations started to bite that you had to basically make a proportion of all kiosks deployed in the field accessible by that 2016 date. Certainly for Apple applications, for instance, beyond that date, you were not allowed to install any non-accessible kiosks or deploy non-accessible kiosks until you'd reached a benchmark where 25% of kiosks in airport locations were actually accessible. So yeah, these legislation has taken a while to be implemented and to be enforced. Interesting, now it's really through private lawsuits that the legislation is being policed, that raises another point Laura. 
We talk about compliance with this legislation, which is very difficult, because we're often asked, "Okay, if we use your device, will we comply with the requirements of ADA Americans with Disabilities Act?" We always say, you will be compliant with the relevant requirements of ADA as it refers to the tactile interface to the kiosk, but there isn't really anybody outside the judiciary who can define whether something is compliant with ADA or not. I noticed there are various individuals or companies offering certification services for ADA compliance, and really there is no properly authorized certification body for ADA. It lies with the judiciary, it'll be a particular court in a particular jurisdiction who will decide whether something is compliant with ADA. At the moment there's no laboratory you can send it to, you can stamp ADA on it and say, ADA compliant.

Laura Boniello Miller:
We get asked that a lot. One of the ways that we meet that request is to provide a conformance review where we review against whatever standards it is. If it's Canadian standards, ADA standards, European standards, to just see whether or not we think that it conforms with what's in the role, whatever it is. If it does, it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't, we write it all up. At the end of the day, as soon as you make a change to that kiosk, that conformance review needs to be updated, because it sort of makes it so that change now, you have to evaluate what's that change in line with ADA or Canadian standards whatever [crosstalk 00:23:06].

Peter Jarvis:
So showing that you've taken reasonable efforts to ensure compliance and you're using due diligence to make sure that it remains compliant, which is the best anybody can do. The courts in my experience have been fairly sensible in this and that if you do make reasonable efforts to comply and you use diligence to make sure that that accessibility is maintained, then you're in a good place.

Laura Boniello Miller:
By the way, I think I'm a conflated, the Veterans Rehabilitation Act with the newer law that was just passed, which was the Department of Veterans Affairs Accessibility Act, thank you for not correcting me. However, I'll correct myself, which includes kiosks now.

Peter Jarvis:
Absolutely.

Laura Boniello Miller:
So I think between the two of them, they both apply and they both are important for looking at particularly what the latest sort of the way that kiosks are sort of falling into the website accessibility sort of framework. And that was just passed in the last couple of months, I believe so.

Peter Jarvis:
Absolutely. We talked about resources being out there. I mean, I know for instance that Vispero and Paciello Group lead the way in providing as much reference material as possible. I know that you provide that guidance, but there are for instance, in the United States, there's the National Federation of the Blind who provide a lot of guidance and advice to people who are planning a kiosk deployment. In Europe, we have the Royal National Institute of Blind and they work for the World Blind Union as well. The TPG store we have a best practices, reference guide as well, which obviously centers on the hardware side rather than the software side. But it has information about the physical dimensions of the kiosks and where the control devices have to be placed relative to the kiosks because a whole kiosk manufacturers association also published some best practices, guidance.
I know the Federal Access Board as well, have a lot of resources, which they make available to people who are planning a kiosk deployments to help them as well. One thing that's absolutely sure is that it's worth doing the research, planning the deployment properly, because we can't afford to get this wrong. The courts are fairly tough when people ignore the regulations or requirements, and we've seen some very high profile settlements or judgements over recent months with global brand names being held to account for non-accessibility. I'm pleased to say that seems to be changing, there is an increasing recognition of the need to comply with these standards are not optional they're mandatory. So absolutely important to get it right first time. I always say when we talk with a kiosk client everybody knows about the five stages of bereavement.
Well, I have the five stages of accessibility enlightenment. I guess something like this first is disbelief. You're telling me that there's a law, which tells me how I have to present content on my kiosk. Yeah, you get that disbelief. Then you get the resistance and avoidance, which is, nah, this can't be right. This applies to situations where there's no sales assistant available to help people, so that doesn't apply to our particular sector. That gives way to a big grudging, but conditional acceptance. Well, I suppose we have got to do but if I put a button on it that rings a bell, when someone needs help without surely we'll do this.

Laura Boniello Miller:
What's the bare minimum, what's the least I can do to make it accessible. Like, what's that bare minimum. I get that a lot.

Peter Jarvis:
Yeah. When you asked the question, what is it you're trying to achieve here? Are you looking to comply with the standard or are you looking to make your kiosk as accessible as it can be? I normally say, we only want you to be as good as we can, but you very quickly realize actually we just want to get minimum to achieve compliance. And then there's the final one, not quite the final one, the fourth one which is realization this has to be done. And it has to be done very quickly because we're facing a lawsuit. And then of course the final one is where the company issues a media release claiming that it was all their idea in the first place and that there is an agreed and ambitious plans and make our systems accessible. We want to be serving valued customers. So they have a sort of five stages that our clients usually go through. Five stages of enlightenment I call it, but anyway, I'm sorry am talking [crosstalk 00:28:40]

Laura Boniello Miller:
No, that's great. That's why we have you here. I think one of the things that I learned from you all that I appreciated was there was a DOJ statement that was released about accessibility for kiosks, and it was basically like all of, all of the things that are said and done in the ADA, at the end of the day, is it able to be used by someone with a disability basically, is the statement. That's the bar? Is it usable by someone with a disability? Am I paraphrasing accurately, would you say?

Peter Jarvis:
Yes. We don't live in a perfect world and we can't design to make everything equal. I mean, equal access to information products and services is a difficult concept because if we take something like a wheelchair ramp into a building yes, that's a provision to allow access in a building, but is it as quick or as easy as for someone that could walk walking up steps. Probably not, you providing access to a particular service, but is it equal in its access? That's a subjective thing. When we talked about the things that we got wrong for instance, one of the most sobering things I've learned was that there are skills which some sight impaired users develop, which I hadn't realized as a sighted person, that the first thing that I remember was when we played back an audio program through one of our devices that the user wanted to speed it up. They were frustrated because it was speech at normal speed. 
When I asked about this, they said, "Okay, well when you grew up reading, learning to read text do you read it slow speed, or do you read as fast as you physically can to get through the text?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I read quite quickly. I read as quickly as I can read." So, well, we've grown up listening to machine generated speech, so I can understand machine generated speech when it's played at five to six times, the speed of the spoken word, I had never realized that before. So we then realized that when we were actually presenting a lot of content, a lot of texts content audibly through an audio program that those users would want to wind up that speed, to an extent that as a normally sighted person, I couldn't hear it. I couldn't follow what that audio program was saying. So again, we made assumptions that didn't hold true. 
The people we were designing for have different needs than those, which we assumed. Which again tells me we doing it the wrong way, we should have been talking to the customer base first, not doing what we thought was right, but doing what they needed us to do. So that was quite an embarrassing mistake for us. I think you muted Laura.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Thank you. We've seen that absolutely. And that's one of the features that you use that some of your devices will allow, will all of your devices allow for the modifying of the speech speed particularly with JAWS, but your audio EF which is the device that you have shown there has the extra buttons. So that can be used in that way, if someone so chooses we do have a couple of questions that I think interesting and that I'd like to get to them. One of the questions that's really applicable to what I know about you and your company, do you do any testing for the kiosks, with people with motor disabilities? I know that you have the answer to this.

Peter Jarvis:
Yes. The answer is, well, do we do enough? Probably not. But yes, one of the things that we realized early on was that we had people who could see perfectly who still couldn't use the touchscreen particularly people who had palsy hands which often result in the clawing of the hands. So fingers lose the dexterity. We saw those people trying to use stumps, to activate touchscreen with the back of their hands or the knuckles. In case of ampities trying to use thumbs to activate touchscreen and experiencing a lot of difficulty in doing that. People with neuropathy, people with advanced tremor, for instance, also can't develop the accuracy, usually needed to operate a touchscreen with any degree of effectiveness.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Not even a touchscreen, Peter, but some of the original devices that have the individual pads, like the whole pivoting of the easy access or of the Storm Interface device is different than those older devices.

Peter Jarvis:
Yes, Absolutely. As we learn, we sort of change the design of the products to say, rather than having individual discreet buttons, could we develop a sort of a tactile system that would allow someone to lay the back of their hand on a device and tilt it in different directions and apply force to actually navigate content. The generation of products which are called you NAB or audio, for instance, have that specific, unique switching technology, which to a degree enables people to use the product without having the dexterity that I would usually require. There's also a whole range of people use head sticks, for instance or easy grip style line. 
So we also try to design the tops surfaces of those products, so those devices wouldn't slip off the control surfaces. So they could be used to navigate content, and we've had some great feedback from people who use the products and have said some nice things about what we're doing. Is everything perfect? No, it's not, we're always facing a new challenge. And I don't think we have properly addressed the needs of people. The blind down the death, for instance, the people who have both conditions and we've struggled to really make a reasonable accommodation for those people. We continue to look at that. 

Laura Boniello Miller:
The solution for that would be a refreshable braille display, which would either be added as a third party type of device, if that were at all possible or as sort of a standard part of the kiosk. We haven't seen a lot of demand for that yet, but that would be the next generation of accessibility.

Peter Jarvis:
Absolutely. Of course, the challenge with all of these interface devices is we have to make them so they can be sanitized. So it can be disinfected in washed and used. For instance, with poles, for instance, one common symptom is they tend to draw a lot. So on voting machines, for instance, where we need to have a device that we can pass to someone for them to use in a wheelchair quite often, that will need to be sanitized between each user or invite dunking in disinfected fluids, for instance. So there are always new challenges that we can face. For us, it's been a pleasure working with Jules kiosks for instance, because we know that the patch halo group are looking at the same things we are looking at. 
For instance, we know that you're developing them. So with the multi technology solutions specifically adding things voice command to the mix, there is no reason why any user or a kiosk should be confined to one interface only. Our intention is that people should be able to use the touchscreen or to transition from that, to using a tactile interface like the audio nav, perhaps then to throw into the mix speech command, that sort of thing you'd find on Amazon, Alexa or how you Google. So that you could actually use a whole combination of different interface mechanisms to achieve that overall, which is something that you can interface with the machine in the way that's most comfortable for your level of ability or in impairment.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Absolutely. So Peter, we have a couple of other questions, one which I think shows the wide range of sort of knowledge of the folks that are coming into this. One is about using kiosk, what standards make kiosk accessible for people in a wheelchair or in other mobility devices. I would say that just ... I'll just quickly address that in that there are heightened reach standards that need to be met. They're extremely clear, but also extremely specific not necessarily accessible by ... so some of them will say it's a minimum height of this, or a maximum height of this. If you put it right where the maximum sort of ... if you put it right where the minimum height is, it could even be on the floor, which doesn't necessarily make it usable. So there are certain standards that even though they make it, they sort of fall into the ADA, they may not be usable. 
And so there are certain things that we recommend based on usability, the angle of the input device for instance. If you put the angle of the input device flat someone in a wheelchair can't see it unless it's very low, but then you have someone who's six feet and they can't reach it unless they can go over. So there are certain things that we recommend to sort of find that middle ground between what the limitations are and what makes a best practice from a usability standpoint. And so in addition to the hardware requirements, in terms of heightened reach and all of that, there are sort of just usability tests to make sure that they are done.

Peter Jarvis:
And even the so access wage of the kiosks, I mean, the number of steps that you might need to negotiate to get to the kiosk, for instance, is not good, having something that wheelchair height, if you've got to go up a flight of steps to get to the kiosk in the first instance.

Laura Boniello Miller:
I have seen that, by the way.

Peter Jarvis:
Oh yes, [inaudible 00:40:12]. So definitely ADA and as you rightly said, even the tactile device, I struggled with the American side, I think on the standard referred to it as a tactically discernible input device, which is a real mouthful for me. But even the angle that the device is set at, the ideal way is to actually set it into a pocket as it were so that people would tremor, for instance, actually have something that will hold the hand positioned over the top of the device. So there's a kiosk pro project that bugs you, and I've been involved in quite recently. We were all asked to design the optimum place to put the tactile device, which we did, but it did mean that the device would stick halfway into the cavity as a kiosk and halfway out, but that was the optimum place. Unfortunately, physically not able to be mounted into that kiosk.
So, yes, absolutely. But all covered under ADA, and the Veterans Rehabilitation Act section 508, if it's a government project, for instance. So there's a lot to be thought about there. The other thing is illumination, it really helps if the product is illuminated, simply finding a jackpot plug socket, for instance, to connect your headset into illumination is a huge outage. You can like that Jack lug socket with a bright white light. It's amazing. We see people with virtually no sight hunting around that heels, trying to find the headphone socket. All you need to say is search for the white bright light, and you'll see them almost put their nose on the kiosk and start scanning, and it helps them to find that. So that there are things that can be done over and above ADA compliance, which will help.

Laura Boniello Miller:
I think having that audio Jack in the actual input device is also helpful which is what Storm does. First of all, it makes it easier, you don't have to do two different things, it's just one. But also including that audio jack onto the input device means that that folks know if they can recognize the input device, that that's where the headphone goes. And so it becomes a more common sort of place to look and it avoids having to find two different locations, one for the audio Jack and one for the input device. So I find that to be a really nice feature and it also it means that you're not paying for two different things. It's all in one. But a question that came up here is one about iPads and whether ... when we've seen these everywhere, they're all over the place in terms of iPads or even Android tablets, any tablet, that's just a touchscreen. 
And then doesn't either have any input device or how is the screen reader even activated, I guess. And so what is your opinion of using an iPad checking kiosk? Can it meet ADA? I mean, this is a question that they have, how far off is it, if you do that?

Peter Jarvis:
Okay, well, tablets, using places of public accommodation, there've been a number of lawsuits that have set precedent on this and I haven't come out well. I know that the major manufacturers of tablet technology are all looking at what can be done to make those devices ADA compliant. And to be really careful what I say here, because we all working under ADA. And I can say that, whereas the track record is not being great. There are moves afoot to offer additional devices or additional technologies that hopefully will lead to those devices becoming ADA compliant. But just not ADA compliant, actually being usable by those with impairments or disabilities. So the technology is changing, the use of gestures will help, the use of voice commands to supplement a tactile interface will also revolutionize that.So yeah, the new tablet based kiosks minimalist skills have presented some challenges to the impact community, change is happening and it's happening fast.

Laura Boniello Miller:
So Android, someone else had asked a question about which operating system do you see most with kiosks, and I think we might have different answers to this based on just timing and also sort of what industries we're in. So we see more Windows obviously because Windows Microsoft has a pretty dedicated accessibility focused, and so kiosks that are being built with accessibility in mind, oftentimes are built on Windows. JAWS screen reader is built with Windows, it has enterprise support and things like that. And so that tends to be where we see more kiosks being built, however, that doesn't mean that, I mean, Android is extremely popular. Talk back is the screen reader for Android. There are a lot of Android solutions out there, we've seen more of that. iPad, I feel like that came and went a little bit in that, but maybe it's still super popular and I don't see it as much, but that does use voiceover. 
Again, how do you activate the screen reader is a big question in those situations. We do offer consulting for those areas, so we do have a solution on, I don't even know what it is to be honest, however it is not quite as seamless as sort of the way that Windows works from an accessibility standpoint from my perspective.

Peter Jarvis:
I think you're absolutely right that the majority of kiosks out there in the field and being stored are still Windows platform devices. I have to say that I think it's going to be awhile before that changes, but if we look at iOS, we look at Android for instance they're grown fast. I mean, it's largely a price at cost driven thing, so I would say is just what I can't bridge confidence is just, but what was going on in the market? Certainly, there are changes coming to address some of the issues that you just talked about. We mean, for instance, the audio NAB devices were designed and developed to be compatible with Windows platforms, we've recently announced an iOS product that work effectively with iOS and with the accessibility features clued in iOS. So there are certain this work being done, improvements being made. I think that's as much as I can say on that, but no, you're right, Windows is still the dominant platform and it will be some time to come.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Excellent. Okay. I have pasted a couple of links in the chat, someone had asked if we had links to some best practice guides for kiosks. I did link a couple of articles. One is considerations for making an accessible kiosk that was written by us. And then one, since Peter had mentioned a couple of the legal cases, I thought I'd just linked to the article that we have written about legal cases for why your case should be accessible. And it just lists out a number of prominent cases, however, it's not comprehensive, and many of the cases that we don't mention are the ones that were involved that maybe we can't mention. And so just sort of as a note, it is not a comprehensive list, it is just a list to give you some guidance of what settlements have been reached. It's I would say almost, and Peter, you can correct me from your knowledge because I think you've seen a lot more of this. 
Almost exclusively when settlements are being reached, it's agreement to add a tactile discernible input device and a screen reader. I mean, that's sort of where they're setting that bar from a court case perspective.

Peter Jarvis:
Yes.

Laura Boniello Miller:
And maybe I did not, oh, people are saying they can't see my links. I said, I only sent it to all panelists, see you guys needed the assistance. Thank you. I will send it now again, only this time to everyone. Oh, maybe I can't. Oh, and attendees, here we go. Multitasking, maybe it's not my skillset. We'll try that again. Peter or Nicky, if you have a link you want to post feel free to do so. And in fact, I can link to the assistive technology products at minimum so that folks can check those out just to see what Peter was talking about with the pivoting and the ability to tactile the link that I just sent to the Storm Interface website has their audio NAB the extended functionality. On the other you can see the backlighting, the green or the white on those. And then also I would add you can't really see it actually, Peter, I would say it would be really great to have a 3D animated video. 
Add that to your list, Nicky. To show the tactile features that make it 3D, because one of the questions that was asked was about the for someone who's in a wheelchair who needs to use a stick or I don't know what the proper term is to actually activate. You mentioned that it has these ridges to keep it in, you can kind of see them, but it actually is kind of 3D. There are features on it that make it more accessible that were given a lot of thoughts. So I think it's worth mentioning at least that from that link.

Peter Jarvis:
I don't know whether Nicky can unmute and Nicky, because I'm going to ask the question is the best practices document available on our website, I think it is. 

Nicky Shaw:
Yes it is. It is a link that Laura just shared? I think it's in the FAQs.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Is it? I'll see if I can find it and pull it up. Where would the FAQs be I'm not sure if [crosstalk 00:51:13]

Nicky Shaw:
You scroll down.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Oh, really about downloads contact, manufacturing needs him.

Nicky Shaw:
No. We go back the link that you just shared. Hold on a moment.

Laura Boniello Miller:
That's okay. We can [inaudible 00:51:25]. So in addition, if there are any other questions now would be a great, oh someone asked about Sanders for public transportation maps, or even train will arrive in type signage outside of live real updating and that was a question.

Peter Jarvis:
Yes. In fact, I would roll that in on the small cities programs, for instance, where integrated transport systems are an important part, I mean, smart cities' implementation. Famously New York, got it wrong in their first attempt where the terminals, the street sign terminals were not in any shape or form ADA compliant or accessible. I'm pleased to say that they've now reviewed that and they're rolling out a new generation of street side terminals to be ADA compliant. But certainly more can be done. We have recently heard that a touchless interface for instance, is being suggested to be a completely compliant, accessible interface. Touchless interface on its own can never be that because doesn't have a tactically discernible navigation system. 
But certainly touchless interfaces are an additional supplement to traditional, tactile load of interface. So Storm themselves, for instance, are launching a range of products that include a touchless interface module, which would enable a disabled person for instance, to use their own personal smartphone or tablet device, which couldn't be bracketed to a wheelchair for instance. So someone with tremor, for instance, their hand can be positioned above their personal devices. There's some VELCRO straps, for instance, and by using their personal device, they can navigate content on a kiosk without actually having to reach or touch the touchscreen on the kiosk itself. 
So again, it's another example of that multimodal technology. Let's put as much technology in there as that will enable people to access the information in as many different ways as we can offer. In the case of a touchless interface, we've been able to add that technology to the audio nav, tactile interface without additional costs. So if someone installs and audio now, product, whether you need it or not, you've got embedded in their touchless interface, should you decide to enable it. Based on BLE, Bluetooth, low energy technology? 

Laura Boniello Miller:
Excellent. Well, if anyone has any other last minute questions or Peter, if you have any last minute pieces of advice or Nicky. Nicky, would be your Storm contact if you have any questions, and Peter, go ahead.

Peter Jarvis:
Well, Nicky is the person I learned most from. So I have to say that Nicky's property sitting there cringing at some of the things I've missed. 

Nicky Shaw:
No.

Peter Jarvis:
So Nicky, please feel free if you've got any comments you'd like to add to my ramblings?

Nicky Shaw:
No. You didn't ramble, bless you. No, the only thing I would probably like to comment, the comments I would like to make is I'm always concerned. I know Peter and Laura, we've discussed this over drinks after trade shows where we've spoken to customers, kiosks builders normally I'm thinking about here who seemed to offer the accessibility device. They're not really the software guys with accessibility device, they're offering it as an optional extra. I'm always concerned about that because we've gotten to know a lot of our kiosk builder customers very well. I wouldn't want to see them on the wrong end of a lawsuit, but it shouldn't be offered as an optional extra. 
So that's sort of my take is, this should be part of your standard offering. If you're supplying kiosks to retailers or to the airports or to transit stations or whatever. It should be part of your standard offering-

Laura Boniello Miller:
And make them take it out instead of adding anything, absolutely.

Nicky Shaw:
That's it exactly. And then at least you then have provided them with the right advice as in, you should be always including an accessibility device on the kiosk. If the customer, for whatever reason chooses not to maybe because their software isn't ready or they just didn't realize they had to do it or it's too much money or whatever, then the onus is then on them if they've opted out of it. So that would just be my two pen.

Peter Jarvis:
Very good point.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Yeah, I do cringe every time I see one shared on social media and I want to like them so much, but if they don't have an input device, I'm like, oh ...

Nicky Shaw:
[inaudible 00:56:35] Facebook posts about accessible gallery because I think we couldn't fill Rogues' Gallery with some of the ones, especially with the pandemic. It seems that machines have been rolled out very quickly because there's been a need to keep businesses open. So there's been a lot of need for having humans interacting with machines rather than other human beings. But I think that's accessibility has followed by the wayside in the rush to get some of them to deployed.

Laura Boniello Miller:
That's a great point. Well, thank you all for joining. I enjoyed this. I could do this every week you guys but ...

Nicky Shaw:
[inaudible 00:57:12].

Laura Boniello Miller:
Can we do it in person, in February it's so nice.

Nicky Shaw:
One day.

Laura Boniello Miller:
All right. Well, thank you all for joining and I hope to do this again. If you have feedback questions for the next time, maybe we can make this kind of regular, if you do have additional questions we'd love to get them. Certainly, we'll be sending up a follow-up that has contact information for Nicky and Peter or Nicky or Peter, and also information that we've discussed here today. 

Peter Jarvis:
Thanks for the opportunities Laura. I appreciate it.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Thanks you all.

Nicky Shaw:
Thanks for having us Laura.

Laura Boniello Miller:
Thank you. 

Nicky Shaw:
Bye-bye 

Laura Boniello Miller:
Have a great day, everyone.