Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability - Josh Miele

The Meta Maker of the 21st Century: Joshua Miele’s Path to Accessible Design

Visitor — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 22:52:50 +0000

By: Danny Thomas Vang, Students for Access Intern

Whether it be the layout of a room, the words on a sheet of paper, or the comprehension of how to effectively use a piece of technology, information is the basis for success. Without access to this information, a person will not have the ability to complete a task to their fullest potential. This is why Joshua Miele has made it his mission to bridge the gap between access to information and people with disabilities. Growing up in New York in a supportive environment, there was no doubt in Miele’s mind that he would one day become a scientist. “I have been successful to the degree that I have because of all sorts of luck and circumstance. I have a supportive family and I am a middle class white male. I come from a family where college was not a thing that you might do, it was the thing that you did.” Photo by the New York Times

In October 1973, Miele lost his vision at the age of four because of an unpredictable action from his next door neighbor. Miele heard the doorbell ring while playing in the backyard, so he went to identify who the visitor was. After opening the gate for his neighbor, the last item he saw was the wood paneling in the vestibule; the neighbor had poured a jar of sulfuric acid on his head. Rather than succumb to a sense of hopelessness and despair because of a sudden life change for their family member, his family was supportive in his recovery and in his future endeavors as a blind scientist and engineer. His father built him a bed that had a jungle gym, his mother encouraged him to feel the art at museums, and his siblings would advocate with him in public/private settings.

Throughout his life, Miele had to identify methods of how to gain access to necessary information in course textbooks, in the presentations in the classroom, and in the workplace. It is a conventional perception that the process of an action commences with the implementation of the action itself, but Miele sees this process as a multi-layer procedure for a person with a disability. “Before we can do the actual things we want to do, we have to create solutions just to get access to the information or the physical aspects of what we want to do. As a person with a disability, you don’t just go skiing. You have to figure out how you are going to adapt skiing to be what you want to do or something fun that you can do.” To be a “meta maker” is to be an individual who has to bridge a divide between themselves and an action before doing the task that was in mind from the onset. With personal experience as a blind person and a meta maker in the technology industry, Miele knew that the path of an information accessibility researcher was where he would be able to make the most significant and tangible impact for the community he cares for. Miele believes that the lack of awareness of accessibility and the lack in representation of people with disabilities in the technology industry is a result of low societal expectations. “The failure comes way before you go in for an interview; it’s in school early on. I am talking about the failure of the system to provide for people with disabilities.” In order to create a culture of inclusion, family members and educators must reach youth as young as possible. It is his belief that teaching students without disabilities about accessible design at the commencement of their education rather than after a product is found to be inaccessible will ensure that there will not be a need to retrofit products and will promote a greater comprehension of disability from the outset. In conjunction, positive reinforcements and opportunities to explore the realm of technology as a youth will allow people with disabilities to decide for themselves if this industry suits their interests.

This is not to diminish the current enthusiasm and effort put forth by those individuals without disabilities who seek to create innovative inventions that may increase access to crucial information for people with disabilities. The issue lies when imagination and cultural assumptions lead the production of a novel product in lieu of practical knowledge or conversational interactions with the community. “Because there is no cultural connection or experience with what that disability entails, they don’t necessarily develop technology that is going to have any relevant impact or usefulness.” Exposure to the barriers in the built environment as a youth will promote the effective and conscious development of products that are usable and practical. At this moment, Miele works on the creation of tactile maps of streets across the nation and the subway/metro system in the local area, online accessibility of YouTube videos, and much more at Smith-Kettlewell. However, his pride lies with the Blind Arduino Project, where youth and adults have the ability to gain hands-on experience on how to utilize an electronics platform to build computerized devices integrating sensors, motors, displays, wireless communications, and a host of other tools. “It’s not that I want every kid to be a blind tech nerd, but I want every blind kid to have the right to know whether or not they are a tech nerd.” Joshua Miele strives to use his experience as a meta maker to ensure that future generations of youth with disabilities have minimal gaps to bridge with access to information while simultaneously providing these individuals the tools to become meta makers as well, should the need arise.

Not all people with disabilities need to develop an interest in the field of technology, but it is imperative that everyone has the ability to explore this area of study. The Students for Access Project strives to capture the experiences of people with disabilities who work in tech and inspire both employers and future techies to push for equitable workplaces.

Interested in more on disability in tech? On Tuesday, August 22nd, from 2-3:30 pm PST the Students for Access will be hosting a free webinar "Beyond Diversity 101: Learning from the Perspectives of People with Disabilities in Tech." To join us, please RSVP. Captioning will be provided.

Read more from our Disability in Tech series here:

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Missed Joshua Miele's Talk at the Longmore Lecture?: Watch it here!

Visitor — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 18:21:51 +0000

The Annual Longmore Lecture in Disability Studies presents Dr. Josh Miele:
"How Access Really Happens: Disability, Technology, and Design Thinking”

March 2, 2016

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtKf45Oc_8A]

Click here to read a guest post by Joshua Miele on our blog.

Josh Miele Bio:

Dr. Miele is a scientist with over 25 years of experience in developing innovative, information-accessibility solutions for blind people. He has a bachelors degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychoacoustics from the University of California at Berkeley. As Director of the Description Research and Innovation Lab (DRIL), and Associate Director of the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Blindness and Low Vision, he leads a team of engineers and scientists dedicated to addressing a wide variety of accessible information challenges in education, employment, and entertainment. His leadership of the DRIL (Formerly the Video Description Research and Development Center) energetically integrates accessibility engineering, education research, psychophysics, disability studies, and other disciplines, applying description technologies and techniques to a universe of information accessibility challenges.

Outside of his professional work at Smith-Kettlewell, Dr. Miele is an active member of the Bay Area’s vibrant disability community. He is a former board member of both the Bay area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP), and the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC). He is the Immediate Past President of the board of the San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and is cofounder and Creative Director of LightHouse Labs — a Bay Area think tank which promotes tightening ties between technology innovators and the blind community.

Dr. Miele is the inventor of the Descriptive Video Exchange (DVX), YouDescribe, WearaBraille, Tactile Maps Automated Production (TMAP), the Talking Tactile Pen (TTP), Sonification tools for MATLAB, Virtual Talking Signs, Simulated Sighted Stranger (SSS), and a number of other tools and diversions for blind consumers. He has also made contributions to screen reader technology, computer-vision applications for the blind, haptic exploration research, and disability humor. Dr. Miele lives in Berkeley, California, the City of the Blind.

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"How Access Really Happens": The 2016 Longmore Lecture

Visitor — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:31:02 +0000

"Real access happens not by asking for permission but by asking for forgiveness after you have done what you need to do" ~Dr. Joshua Miele, 2016 Longmore Lecture guest speaker

By: The Longmore Institute

At this year's annual Longmore Lecture on Wednesday, March 2, we heard from scientist and inventor Joshua Miele, who discussed his take on "how access really happens." Dr. Miele holds a Ph.D. in psychoacoustics from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently Director of the Description Research and Innovation Lab (DRIL) and Associate Director of the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Blindness and Low Vision. As noted in an earlier post, Miele has spent nearly 30 years "designing and implementing a wide variety of tools intended to give blind people better access to the information they need to do the things they want to do."

But this talk wasn't about the latest accessible technology. Rather, Miele began by reminding all of us that "disability, accessibility, equality and self-determination connects back with the history and culture of disability." His reigning mantra, which is echoed as a core tenant of the Longmore Institute, is that disability can spark creativity and innovation, and rather than letting everyone else figure out the best way to solve problems for "those people," innovation comes best straight from the source. Dr. Miele shares some musings on the pros and cons of powerpoint presentations for blind speakers.

Miele noted that "there is a big difference between independence and self-determination." He recalled his own journey both professionally and personally on how he was able to progress from adapting, to being in a position to help others. As a physics student, Miele relied on another low-vision scientist Abraham Nemeth's braille code for math and science formulas, along with his own additions. And with ever-increasing access to technologies and ideas, his work continues to figure out "how blind people can build the things that they need to build."

One of his most compelling stories was of a childhood memory in a museum. He recalls his mother describing a display of airplanes, then waiting for a security guard to look away so that he could go under the rope and touch the planes himself as she identified them. Although he wasn't directly suggesting going beyond the ropes in museums (though many museums actually offer touch tours for low-vision visitors now!), he illustrated the point that "Real access happens not by asking for permission but by asking for forgiveness after you have done what you need to do." This year's lecture was informative and entertaining, but also a call to arms to advocate for the access we really need. By working with expert innovators like Miele, we can make access really happen. Missed the lecture? Watch it here!

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Access is in the Air

Visitor — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 23:44:47 +0000

By: Catherine Kudlick

Like the whiff of California's early spring blossoms, access for blind people is in the air. After last fall's red carpet launch, we have exciting news of Pixar's audio description for all Disney films; thanks to an app, blind people can now follow mainstream releases with along with everyone else.

Last month also brought Stevie Wonder's viral video taunting his colleagues at the Grammys about not reading Braille. More awesome still was his plea: "We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability." This must be the first-ever celebrity call for disabled people's rights on a world stage.

And then there was my heart-stopping moment during Sunday's Oscars when I - along with a number of followers on social media - could have sworn we had heard audio description. Watching with my 88-year-old mother who also benefited, I hooted, I tweeted, I bolted from my chair to dance a little jig: they're describing the visual content of movies, not just on national TV, but on the premier movie show. Our hopes were soon dashed as normal life returned - the descriptions had been used to showcase the fine art of script writing for the best screenplay award.

Yet something in my universe had turned upside down. Because of Pixar and Stevie Wonder, it was possible not just to dream of audio description as a possibility but to imagine it, even feel it as something real.

The work of accessibility is just beginning. Some needs are quite basic: a quarter century after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), audio description for movies, plays and other performance is far less common than close captioning for deaf and hard of hearing, to the point where even my mother conflated them in her head.

And despite the passage of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act too much of the Internet remains off-limits to blind and low-vision users, while the new world of phone apps is hit or miss. Sometimes newly designed environments even get worse with more animation and smaller, greyer fonts. Many blind people I know avoid thinking of how fragile our tech ecosystem is; one seemingly innocuous update could end it in an instant.

This is why we must build upon the interventions of giants like Pixar and Stevie Wonder to push for access on every front. Access needs to be so woven into the everyday fabric of everything that it would be unthinkable to imagine a world without it. Consider how unthinkable it would be to undo all the curb cut-outs for wheelchairs and apply this to the electronic environment.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!

If you're a scholar, consider joining the accessible books initiative. If you're not, spread the word about accessible film options for blind people and older people who love movies but who may have stopped going because of missing out. If your local theater offers nothing, ask them why, and casually mention that it's increasingly part of the law.
And if you have any pull in the tech or film worlds, share the news: exciting creative possibilities for access are already here. Pages that build in access need not be clunky or ugly. At the Superfest: International Disability Film Festival that we co-host with SF LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, some of the most interesting film breakthroughs are thanks to directors building this feature in for everyone. And Longmore Lecturer Joshua Miele's Video Description Research and Development Center project crowd-sources audio description.

Sure, my Oscar hopes were dashed this year, but I saw a future that spoke to me in a clear voice: access is in the air and worth everyone's time.

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Blind Eye for the Sighted Guy

Visitor — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 23:07:02 +0000

In this shared blog post, Dr. Joshua Miele, who will deliver this year's annual Longmore lecture, looks at stories behind the disability expertise we seek to celebrate at the Institute. His desire to innovate comes as a creative impulse for sure. But his efforts also arise from the need for true dialog between disabled and nondisabled innovators. Swirling in here are genuine impulses to help. Yet too much effort goes into imagining what *those people* might want or need rather than considering how we might all benefit by looking to the work of someone like Miele.

-Director Catherine Kudlick, Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability

The following blog is cross-posted from http://bit.ly/JAMBE4SG

By: Joshue Miele

For almost thirty years, I’ve been designing and implementing a wide variety of tools intended to give blind people better access to the information they need to do the things they want to do. Information accessibility is one of the most significant barriers facing blind people. From printed text and graphics to interactive point-and-click interfaces, information is almost always represented visually, and it is almost always the primary thing a blind person needs to negotiate in order to achieve his or her desired ends.

I don’t do this out of the kindness of my heart or for the money — I do it because I have to, and because I need the job done right. I’m a blind scientist who has had to do a lot of his own informational negotiation over the years, and I know from experience that the quality of one’s accessibility tools has a direct impact on the quality of one’s life.

I didn’t set out to be an accessible technology researcher. At first I thought I’d be some kind of physicist, but in the course of my studies I found myself having to put almost as much effort into developing my own tools and techniques for accessing information as into my studies themselves. I realized that good access tools needed to be designed by someone who truly understood how and why they would be used. I’m sure this is some kind of ancient product design wisdom that’s taken for granted in most mainstream product development efforts. However, in the case of products for blind people it is frequently abbreviated or overlooked entirely. Many sighted inventors of accessibility tools unconsciously substitute a combination of mythology, prejudice, and pity for market research. They come up with an idea that they think would be useful for blind people and leap into development mode, often without consulting even one informed blind consumer.

No one is more familiar with this phenomenon than Bill Gerrey. An engineer at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute where I have worked in one capacity or another for over ten years, he is one of my most valued blind mentors. In his more than four decades at S-K, he has developed all kinds of accessible tools for electrical engineering, wayfinding, mobility, home maintenance and repair, ham radio and more. He has been a subject and collaborator in practically every accessibility experiment ever done at Smith-Kettlewell. For years he was the founder and Editor in Chief of a ground-breaking DIY Electronics magazine for blind people, and remains the irreverent and unvarnished (except where it suits him to be otherwise) institutional memory of the organization. He loves gadgets, the older the better. Both his home and lab are warehouses for equipment that was manufactured and thrown away more than seventy years ago, was lovingly rescued shortly thereafter, and which has been piled up awaiting its hour of need for decades. He has cylinder players, army field telephones, vibrotactile stimulators, oscilloscopes, and microwave ovens stashed in every imaginable location. Any of these could get swept up into Bill’s next prototype.

Bill is famous in a modest way. He has been featured in many newspaper and magazine articles, and has appeared on TV, radio, and podcasts. Sometimes it’s for projects he has been involved with; other times, people write about him simply because he’s interesting and fun to talk to. I’m pretty sure that his secret to success is that reporters simply like chatting with him. He’s a font of history, opinion, old jokes, wisdom, and irritability — mostly in good measure.

I started at S-K as a summer intern while getting my Ph.D. at Berkeley. I was in awe of Bill Gerrey — a living legend in the blind community. They squeezed me into his electronics lab by piling the stacks of plastic project boxes and ancient shortwave radio chassiss even higher to yield a few square feet of bench space for my computer and keyboard. My perch was right outside the door to Bill’s inner office so he had lots of opportunity to mentor me.

The biggest benefit of sitting there was that I got to listen to all of Bill’s phone calls. Because he conducted so much of his business on the phone, I was educated in all sorts of unanticipated aspects of accessibility engineering research. I learned the business from the inside out, so to speak. While the sausage of the accessibility world is nothing compared to politics, I did confront some distasteful truths that summer.

In particular, I noted a recurring type of disturbing phone conversation. Once or twice a week Bill would field a call from a complete stranger sent by one of his adoring connections, or possibly self-propelled through sheer doggedness or religion. It would start with Bill calmly, if tiredly, saying something like, “That’s interesting, but blind people don’t really need that,” or “Actually, that already exists,” or “Have you talked to any blind people about this?” The conversation would generally turn into a long discussion about the fundamentals of Braille reading, how screen readers work, cane technique, or some other incredibly basic aspect of the routine conduct of blind life.

It turns out that there is a type of person — usually a retired sighted guy — who has invented something that’s going to really help blind people. Unfortunately, guys like this don’t usually know any blind people, and they don’t generally have any idea what needs doing in the blind world, technologically or otherwise. They seem to be inspired mostly by pity, which is a powerful motivator, but poor preparation for addressing real problems. They are reasonably well-meaning, but they generally show little interest in learning anything about the field or doing any kind of market research. You see, they’ve already invented the thing that blind people need, and they just need a little help — usually with obtaining funding — to get it into the hands of the needy blind.

One guy had invented a special telephone that would call 911 if you gave it a hard bump or knocked it off the table. He was convinced that it would be perfect for blind people because if you needed help you could just… knock it off the table. I guess he thought blind people couldn’t dial 911. Or maybe he just figured we were really good at knocking things off tables. Either way, Bill had a hell of a time convincing him that it was not only a thing that blind people didn’t need, but would also constitute a serious problem for responders in the event of an earthquake. He did not even mention how offensive the idea was.

Throughout these conversations Bill was always polite and friendly, but firm and instructive. The calls always seemed to drain him. It was as if the thankless task of dashing the hopes of these poor old guys was exhausting physical work. Inevitably, the calls would conclude with Bill offering to send some information, make a connection, or help in some other minimally committal but magnanimous follow up.

When the call would finally end, Bill would put the phone down and lean back in his chair. He’d emit a long sigh followed by a laugh. “That guy has it all figured out,” Bill would say. He’s going to invent a new Braille system with three extra dots and it’s going to solve everything.”

Although I have mellowed with age, I have to admit that I have never suffered fools gladly, and greatly admired Bill’s ability to remain calm under extreme conditions. My accidental audits of Bill’s involuntary re-education classes would inevitably get me riled up. I told bill once after a particularly bad one that I wasn’t sure if I felt more sorry for him, or more sorry for them. Bill got a great big laugh out of that. We both knew that it was a toss-up as to who was getting the shorter end of the stick: Bill for having to try to educate resentful people who thought he was simply unappreciative of their genius, or the misguided geniuses themselves for intellectually leaping without first looking at the problem from the proper perspective.

If you want to design a really good sail boat, you don’t want some physicist land lubber who just understands fluid dynamics and mechanical advantage to do the job. You want someone who, in addition to knowing about those things, has a lot of experience sailing. the physicist who would be a shipwright should become a sailor. After a few dedicated years on the water he will have a better grasp of how to build a better boat. If he isn’t a complete misanthrope, in the process, he will have also acquired a community of fellow seafarers — an invaluable source of advice and constructive criticism. Now he’s ready to build his boat. With a little luck and good design sense, this combination of expertise, experience, and user feedback could, ultimately, lead to the development of a truly superior sailboat.

Bill Gerrey’s callers have neglected to take their sailing lessons or even to connect with a community of sailors. They already know what it’s like to be blind because they’ve tried to find the bathroom in the dark a few times. They have seen “The Miracle Worker,” and maybe talked to a blind person on the bus once or twice. In their minds, a lack of vision is synonymous with a lack of knowledge or ability. They presume that any invention they can come up with will naturally be an improvement for the lives of the blind. Market research complete!

Unfortunately, the problems that uninformed sighted inventors assume are critical are often complete non-issues for real blind people. Bill’s callers mistakenly assume that blind people are inexpert at being blind, and that we haven’t developed skills or techniques for dealing with the most obvious aspects of blind life. These self-perceived innovators are oblivious to the fact that in order to help us, they need, first, to ask us for help and be prepared to listen.

Now that I’m a big fancy scientist I field calls from these sighted inventors, too. Not as often, of course, because I’m not as famous or as friendly, but inexorably, they trickle in. We probably all get them from time to time, but those of us in accessibility research are particularly prone. There seems to be an endless supply of well-intended, ignorant sighted inventors who have come up with just the thing to keep Blind Timmy from inadvertently stepping in puddles, and they’re really bummed when their contribution to blindkind is so badly misunderstood and under-appreciated. From an informed perspective, I find so many of these inventions are unwanted, unnecessary, and, dare I say, kind of stupid, but it is incumbent on my colleagues and me to at least try to instruct these would-be product developers gently. The worst part is not their inevitably bruised feelings, it is the waste of their efforts. If only they would take the time to learn and understand, they might make a significant contribution. If only they would learn about blind people — our methods and our needs — before deciding what we need, they might come up with something truly useful. What a shame to waste so much enthusiasm on so many useless endeavors.

Recently I’ve been thinking about these guys again, and how cool it would be if blind people could help them. Wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow tap this resource? What if we could get to them before they invent their superfluous head-mounted escalator detectors? What if we could give them some kind of course or training materials that would educate them enough to at least start asking the right questions? How wonderful it would be if we could tell someone about the seventy-one ways we have already tried and failed to invent full-page refreshable tactile displays before they re-invented the twenty-seventh. If we could only direct their technical creativity before it goes into yet another irrelevant laser cane or face identifier, we might be able to help them actually help us.

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