Back when I had useful vision, I adored collecting watches. In particular I had a penchant for unique faces and unique ways of displaying the time. My collection varied from flashing LED watches from Tokyo Flash to a Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute. So, when I lost my useful vision and had to begin to buy talking watches I was gutted. I had gone from fine crafted Breitling to a cheap £40 piece of plastic (arguably the Tokyo Flash watches were cheap, but at least they were interesting).

The talking watches would break continuously, I would often forget to remove it when bathing my son and it would break. After this had happened 3 times, I just decided to give up on having a wrist watch. I resorted to using my phone as my new timepiece, this had a number of drawbacks however. I would have to remove it from my pocket to tell the time. It was far from subtle as the time would be read aloud and its just not as cool as a watch!

Therefore, I was incredibly excited when I heard about The Bradley Timepiece, a watch that was billed as inclusive. It seemed interesting, it had a very unique way to tell the time, so that harked back to my old collecting days! Instead of speaking the time aloud or vibrating the time, it relies on touch.

There are two ball bearings, one that runs in a groove around the rim of the watch, and the other which runs around a small circle on the face of the watch. The ball bearings are moved around by magnetism, with the outter rim for hours and the face for the minutes. To assist in telling the time, the numbers 1 through 12 are raised lines on the face, with the number 12 having a small triangle, to indicate it is the top of the face.

In order to tell the time you gently move your fingers across the face and rim to indicate the time. Initially this proved slightly difficult, as I would accidentally move the ball bearings, however, a quick flick of the wrist and the bearings return to the correct positions. The raised lines of the face greatly assist in telling the time. When I first began to use the watch I would locate one of the ball bearings and then trace my finger out to the raised lines and count the lines to 12, to give me a clear reading of the current time. After owning the watch for a few weeks however, the time is now far simpler to tell the time, it just took a little practice.

One of the main niggles of the watch is the strap. I chose the mesh stainless steel strap. It has two problems. 1, it isn’t made for slim wrists, for a guy I have very slim wrists. Even at the smallest setting the watch is a little loose. The other is how difficult the strap is to fasten, you initially have to hook the clasp over a small bar, click the clasp shut, then clip over another clasp. The initial hooking of the bar takes a lot of practice, so much practice that it becomes a little irritating. However, there are a number of other straps available, so this really came down to my choice of the metal strap.

The watch itself is beautiful, using touch to tell the time is simply fantastic. I am now able to subtly tell the time. This is powerful, previously everyone in earshot knew I was checking the time, so in meetings or when giving a speech this simply wasn’t practical. Now I can subtly touch my wrist and get a sense of the time. I also receive a number of complements about the watch, something that never happened when wearing a cheap plastic talking watch! Sighted people are often intrigued by the look of the watch and remark just how beautiful it looks. Who would of thought, a product that is inclusive for the visually impaired that looks great! That truly is rare.

The design execution of the watch is even carried through to its box, something that is often overlooked when designing something vor the visually impaired. Whilst I am unable to read braille or indeed see the included booklet, it is easy to tell a lot of through has gone into every aspect of this watch.

Overall, this watch is a great buy. I would recommend it to anyone sighted or non-sighted. It is a rare “out of the box” experience for the visually impaired. You can literally take this watch out of the box and instantly be able to use it, setting the time is a breeze and intuitive. There is only one obvious option to set the time, pull out the crown, twist and the bearings begin to move. I would put The Bradley timepiece in the same league as the iPhone for its out of the box experience, it is simply, that good.

This year I will finally run my first marathon, in NYC. Before I even ran I had dreamed of running NYC, it is also one of the cities I visited while I still had sight, so it always feels special whenever I return. It is also tantalisingly close to Boston, the birthplace of RunKeeper – the running app that made running solo outdoors as a blind runner possible.

So I had an idea, why not run from Boston to NYC, then compete in the NYC marathon? And to make it even more special, why not connect with people on social media to help me along the way. That is the plan and I am reaching out to the internet to help make it happen!

The Adventure

The plan is to arrive in Boston around mid to late october and begin running an average of 30 miles a day, for 10-13 days (distance varies depending on final route chosen). I plan to break the run into small chunks, and connect with as many people as possible. I don’t expect people to run at a particular pace, I am happy to run, jog or walk, the idea is just to connect with as many people as possible to help me get to NYC.

I intend on producing as much real time content as possible, from video, audio, photos, real-time GPS, health tracking, quality hiking gear, basically using any available technology to produce data while I run. I will also be maintaining a blog up to and during the adventure, so there will be a stream of content produced from the run. Something I hope to share with everyone involved and as a keepsake to show my children when they are older.

Funding

As I am currently a student and will finish my degree just in time for this adventure, predictably I am skint! So I am looking at two possible avenues for funding this adventure, sponsorship and public speaking.

There are numerous opportunities for brands and companies to become involved, I am open to all suggestions, so if you feel we could work together, or know someone who may be interested please get in touch.

I believe this to be a great opportunity for brands, the adventure will run for around 2 weeks, so there will be substantial social media coverage. I also anticipate numerous other press appearances, and will be contacting all the agencies I have been working with in the past. In return for brands supporting my adventure I would certainly make myself available for any press events, or public speaking at a conference of your choosing. To make this adventure a reality I really need help with travel, accomodation and a few pieces of equipment. If you can help with any of these please do get in touch.

The other route is public speaking, I do have experience at public speaking and at recent conferences including IAB mobile and Google Think, I was rated top speaker. I have also been invited to speak at technology companies including Twitter, PayPal, Google and more. As well as speaking at conferences I also do smaller motivational speeches for corporate events. So if you have any need for a motivational public speaker, or would just like to hear my story, please get in touch and help me fund my new adventure.

“Simon tells a compelling story of a life transformed by two things: technology and a positive attitude. I’ve seen him speak twice. Each time he has inspired the audience and been the best performing speaker on the programme”.
Bruce Daisley, MD Twitter UK.

So who am I?

I am aware some people may not know who I am, so to save you reading my entire blog, here is a commercial I starred in for Carphone Warehouse. It gives a great outline of who I am and what I have achieved up to this point.

Over the past few weeks, I have been playing around with Google Glass. It has been a wonderful experience, and I incredibly hopeful for the future opportunitIes that Glass can offer. As soon as I placed Glass on my face, I was reminded of the sensation of wearing glasses. The weight is similar to wearing a pair of prescription glasses. I quickly snapped a photo and was amazed with the simplicity of the hands free use.

Outdoors with Glass I had my first experience of navigation. I was able to issue a voice command and have the directions read aloud through the bone conduction ear piece. It was a nice hands off experience of navigating, while it is visually obvious I am wearing Glass, I felt this usage made me blend into the crowd. I didn’t have to remove a phone from my pocket and clumsily type a location or issue a voice command, I could seamlessly walk down the street and issue commands. This is powerful for the visually impaired. As using a phone with a guide dog or cane is impossible. Gestures often require two hands, so I need to drop the dogs harness, stand still and begin the process of multiple taps and gestures to find the app and input the location. With Glass however, I have hands free operation, I can control Glass while continuing my walk down the street.

After being quite pleased with using Glass to navigate from the Satchi to South Kensington, it was my next use of Glass that was the real, wow moment. My wife and I, had decided to take our eldest son to the Natural History museum. When out and about it usually falls to my wife to take photos, this time however, I had decided to take all the photos using Glass. I was able to follow my son around and not only snap photos of the exhibits, but my son as well. This may sound quite mundane, but for me, this was literally the first time in my life I had been able to easily and seamlessly accomplish this. I could then share the photos with my son and continue the experience. A new piece of technology that creates new ways for me to interact and experience moments with my children is priceless. It was a trulyamazing experience.

For me, the most exciting part is the possible opportunities Glass may afford. Essentially Glass can see and I cannot. I imagine a future where Glass can read a menu to me in a restaurant. A simple glance at the menu and glass recognises the text and begins to read aloud. Or perhaps, opening a book and have it read aloud, reading a book – that is something I have not been able to do in a long time. Object recognition, the ability to identify objects in a specific scene, or recognise my friends and acquaintances, and speak their names in my ear. Essentially, Glass would allow me to more readily operate in social environments, fill in the gaps created by my lack of vision.

While some of these ideas may be a little way off in the future, I remain optimistic. When touch screen phones first arrived the visually impaired could not interact. The doomsayers had predicted we would be left behind in this technological advancement, unable to see the screen how would we operate it? A few years later with the introduction of VoiceOver in the iPhone 3GS saw a revolution. For the first time the visually impaired could interact not only with the phone, but with hundreds of apps and information sources, it was an enormous leap forward thanks to a single feature.

As I sit here, on the first revision of Glass, I am already able to interact with it. While I may not be able to see the screen, voice input and audio feedback enable me to interact. Something that was not possible with the first touch screen smartphones. With Google’s commitment to accessibility, seen across their entire product lines, I am confident as the development of Glass continues the levels of possible interaction by the visually impaired will only increase.

As it stands now, Glass has already enabled me to experience life events in a new and exhilarating way, something I am very thankful for.

Last year I was invited into the technology innovation centre of a major airline. I was presented with a key issue for the airline and asked for input. I came up with a number of ideas which focussed around iterative technology changes or what I believed to be breakthrough technologies that could deliver innovative solutions.

My suggestions for iterative changes revolved around the customer experience of media while on the plane. I had suggested that this experience could be extended to the lounge area, through simple changes, be that loaning devices to passengers or delivered through a mobile app. This was an easy solution to implement and something that would grow the customer experience.

The major idea I delivered focussed on the terminal. Airport terminals are vastly large spaces which can often be difficult to navigate. I suggested that a mobile app that aided with this problem would be of great benefit. Not only could it navigate customers through the terminal but also direct them to points of interest such as shops, restaurants, facilities and the required gate. The added nenefit of this would be navigation for the visually impaired, which supported my general message on accessibility. Develop a product that delivers value to the sighted while at the same time adding value to the none sighted.

The airline seemed incredibly keen and began a barrage of questions on this idea, mainly revolving around if the technology existed. The technology did indeed exist – the iBeacon. I detailed exactly how it could be implemented with current technology and the benefits it would deliver.

In passing I also mentioned how my recent experiences with a competitor airline, Virgin were exceptional. I felt Virgin seemed to really grasp the customer experience. So when I found this story a couple of days ago I was not surprised that Virgin had indeed dlivered the idea I had suggested to a competitor. It is great to see the technology being put to use in the terminal, I only hope it can offer some assistance to the visually impaired in this implementation.

A couple of years ago I lost the ability to see faces on a daily basis. This happened so gradually I hardly noticed it was happening at all. For with people I have known a long time, I would fill in what they look like. So it was more apparent when I met someone new.

I found whenever I met someone knew I was creating a mental picture of what they looked like. But what was I basing this picture on? As how can I imagine what a stranger, I have never seen looks like?

These questions were brought to the forefront when I was working with a fellow student at university. I had worked with them on and off for over 2 years, so I knew their voice well. I could easily pick it out from a crowd of voices. Due to the familiarity of the voice I had begun to assign a mental representation. But rather than specific features it was just a feeling. While working with her one day I turned round and I got a brief flash of her face. For that brief moment all the conditions required for me to see were fulfilled to perfection. This is such a rare occurrence that to this day I have only seen my eldest sons face a handful of times and yet to see my youngest.

I mentioned to her that I just saw her face and she looked nothing like I had imagined. I was quickly met with the retort, “so what did you think I looked like?”. I found I couldn’t describe any specific facial features, just a general form that her voice had created in my mind. Since then I have not been able to see her face again and the rest of the people I meet remain faceless. I just get a sense of people like objects moving around me, with no sense of a persons appearance.

The best way I can describe the faceless appearance of people is a scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Where Jim Carrey’s character is trying to see the face of a woman in his mind, but despite moving around continuously the woman remains faceless. No matter how much I will it so, I cannot choose to see someones face. It is only in those ephemeral moments that I have the briefest of flashes of features.

During my heavy revision period, the tram I take to university was undergoing some maintenance. This meant I could no longer use my normal tram stop, instead relying on the replacement bus service to take me to the next stop.

This worked great until one evening when I was travelling alone. I realised I had no idea how to get from the tram to the replacement bus service. I thought Ascot might just go with the flow and guide me to the bus stop. Nope! – instead he went with the flow that took me to a road. I thought to myself – if someone can point me in the right direction to Meadowhall, I can figure it out from there!. I asked around and a kind lady offered to guide the way, so me and Ascot followed along. The kind lady dropped us off at Debenhams and was on her way. Now the challenge was getting from here to the train station, I had never walked this route before.

The easy solution would have been to ask around, I am sure someone would of helped me. But instead I thought I could figure it out. I told Ascot to walk straight ahead and listened out for any cues. I heard a woman in high heels walk by me hurriedly. In my mind walking with such conviction meant only 1 of 2 things, she worked here or she was leaving the store. I took a gamble and began to follow her footsteps. It appeared to be paying off as ahead of me I could hear far more chatter and human traffic, a sure fire tell that it was the exit. Leaving the store I could feel the surface change and the acoustic change, now how do I get to the train station?

I knew I was on the bottom floor and the train station was on the first floor, so I just needed to find some stairs. I walked straight ahead until I could smell Yo Sushi!. I remembered that Yo Sushi! Was the only restaurant near the stairs, so that was quite easy. It also gave me the vital piece of information I needed. Where in Meadowhall I was. So now in my head I quickly plotted out the route and barked the instructions to Ascot, a few minutes later we arrived at the train station.

It was a great reminder of the power of combining the guidance of Ascot with the environmental cues to navigate unfamiliar environments. I also thank the kind lady and the lady with loud high heels!

During 2013 I began to read at in increased rate. This was mainly due to the Kindle iOS app allowing VoiceOver. So for the first time since losing my vision I could read again. The only problem being not all books are available on Kindle yet so I often become annoyed that there are still a whole host of books I am unable to read. If I have a special interest in the book however, then I spend time converting it to make a digital copy.

My reading is shaped by my current interests, running, psychology and business. In order to expand my reading list I thought I would post my favourite reads of 2013 in the hope others would share theirs.

Priceless

Priceless is a fantastic insight into the psychology of pricing. As I read throughout the book I was amazed at just how many of the psychological tricks I have fallen prey too. The books covers everything from the psychology of mobile phone contracts to the size of a box of cereal. It really is a fascinating read on behavioural decision theory.

Kindle – Priceless on Amazon UK

Paperback – Priceless on Amazon UK

Just A Little Run Around the World

This is easily my favourite read of 2013. After meeting the author and having the opportunity to have a few words with her I immediately went home to buy her book. It is an emotional tale of an epic 5 year run around the world. Rosie undertook this amazing challenge at the age of 57 after losing her husband. Instead of the usual statistics based stories of running it tells an emotional tale of the hardships and magical moments that she experiences along the way. You really don’t have to be into running to enjoy this story. Its just a great tale of an individuals determination to achieve a dream. Whenever I am struggling during a run I call upon the little stories from the book inspire me to continue. If you want to be inspired read this book!

Kindle – Just A Little Run Around The World on Amazon UK

Paperback – Just A Little Run Around The World on AMazon UK

How To Talk To Anyone – 92 Tips and Tricks For Big Success in Relationships

The title of this book made me groan a little. I thought it was going to be full of silly ways to improve your conversational skills or stupid props. Now there are a couple of tips that do recommend a silly prop, I personally would never do this as a conversation starter. I do however have a guide dog, that is a pretty large prop that goes everywhere with me and is a conversation starter, so perhaps I do use a prop?

The reason I wanted to read this book was to improve my conversation skills. Being blind can often make initial conversations with strangers difficult. While I do maintain very good eye contact something that is always commented on, starting conversations can often be difficult. Mainly because I lack a number of the social cues that are taken for granted by many people. for example body language. So the idea of me reading this book was to make it easier for others to communicate with me.

I have to say the tips and tricks really do work. There are a number of people I see all the time but never strike up conversation with, the sandwich man and the people in Starbucks. After using a few of the conversation tricks in this book I managed to maintain quite good conversation with the sandwich man and the Starbucks employees. Individuals who I would normally only share the briefest of pleasantries. So for me it really did improve my everyday conversation skills. It has also hopefully made it far easier for others to communicate with me.

Kindle – How To Talk TO Anyone on Amazon UK

Paperback – How To Talk To Anyone on Amazon UK

I adore technology – since I was a teenager I have been a massive fan of everything from computers to consoles, phones, gadgets and most recently fitness tracking devices. However being blind can sometimes make this passion difficult. But I do pride myself in taking technology and re imagining how it can be used.

Reimagining how RunKeeper could be used allowed me to learn to run solo. I take this approach to other pieces of technology in my life and believe I manage to use technology in ways it was never intended to be.

I am also a big fan of crowd funding. I have lost track of how many projects I have funded now but its been quite a few. I even took the risk of backing a project for a christmas present. With project creep all to common on crowd funding sites I am happy to say this project is running on time.

I often get to combine these two passions and fund many technology projects. Often to reimagine a use for them and make them an accessible piece of technology. The reason I backed the Pebble was to increase the accessibility of RunKeeper. For example when using VoiceOver it was a case of removing the phone from my pocket and 6 taps of the screen to pause or stop a workout. So the idea that this could be achieved by one press of the Pebble made it ever so appealing.

The great thing about crowd funding is also the opportunity to speak to the creators of a product. I managed to catch one product early enough in the development for them to change one feature that would make their product accessible. They were more than willing to do this as it opened up two markets for their product, sighted and non sighted people.

And that is where I feel the world of technology should be at. Making subtle changes in order to make their products accessible. Not an overhaul to make sure it can achieve a high level of accessibility and certainly not developing a product with the sole idea of being accessible. But with the thought at the beginning of the process on how could we make this accessible?

Tiny moves in the right direction can make a product accessible. I will use as an example the product that sparked this post: The Skulpt Aim. The aim is a device that is able to monitor your muscle quality and give accurate body fat percentage information. When I heard of this product I wanted to own it. I scoured their indiegogo page in order to glean if there were any features I could use to my advantage to make the product accessible. I couldn’t find any specifics so I decided to email them. The features I felt would make it accessible are as follows:

An audible beep when the scan is complete
The companion iOS app supporting VoiceOver

As you can see that list isn’t exhaustive and if anything it actually adds a feature for sighted people. If you are measuring your bicep for example it could beep when the scan is done. Removing the requirement to look at the screen. I am sure the product is pitched at its amazing visuals on screen but a beep would not distract from this. Accessibility features don’t need to be added with the sole purpose to aid the people who rely on them. They are a feature for the people who don’t rely on them.

Perhaps there is a belief that to make a product accessible is complex. It really isn’t. Its about thinking about who will use your product and not instantly dismissing the disabled.
The keen people may be thinking he hasn’t mentioned adding VoiceOver to the iOS app. Well that is just a case of making sure you label things correctly, not exactly adding a large development overhead.

Unfortunately the development of the Aim is too advanced in order to add an audible beep to the device. Now this alone would not stop me purchasing. If it worked with VoiceOver I would be willing to learn how to use the device, then take the data from the iOS app. However their email reply seems to suggest they are locked into their cycle and do not want to deviate even slightly. So I am unsure if VoiceOver support will be added to the iOS app. I cant risk backing to receive something I can’t use. I mean the Misfit Shine taught me that lesson!
The only reason I am using the Skulpt Aim in my example is down to how much I would of loved to use this product. The fact I cant use it now means I am excluded from the ability of being able to monitor my BF%. I am sure some people will say well couldn’t your wife help you, but that removes my independence. It also isn’t feasible to always ask someone for assistance when using a device.

One of my favourite products that was just released with great hope for accessibility is the Xbox One. The Xbox is incredibly interesting just for its voice controlled Kinect features. The ability to control the television and EPG through voice is a breakthrough. Being able to control the television is something I haven’t been able to do for a while. There are a few specialist products that exist to achieve this for the blind but I am not a fan of products specifically tailored for the blind.

I find they are often stripped back to a point I almost feel like I am paying an absurd amount of money for a lesser product. Quite often when a product is developed with the sole focus of accessibility the result is an incredibly limited and expensive piece of technology. This is because the developers just limited themselves to a very small market so in order to make their money back they vastly increase the price.A great example of this is the iOS app Fleksy. Fleksy is a typing application for the iPhone & Android which makes typing a breeze. When this app was initially released it was targeted at a typing solution for the blind and it was priced accordingly (very high!). I can remember when the app was first released and I even began to tweet about how expensive it was which quickly caught the eye of the developers. I pointed out my frustration at why applications developed solely for the disabled were so cost prohibitive.

Low and behold a few weeks later Fleksy re aligned the product. Now the application was subtly re marketed as an application that allowed you to type without looking at the screen. That subtle change of direction opened them up to a massive market and now they seem to be having tremendous success, with the app now being free. Incidentally it is one of my favorite apps and one I can not live without.

Fleksy brings me back to a point I made earlier. Accessible features add value to those that rely on them and those that don’t. Accessibility adds value to all customers.

If anyone is reading this and thinking about developing an application, product or anything and wants to know how to make it accessible please get in touch. A few simple tweaks can mean added value to all of your potential customers not just those that rely on accessibility.