Remote Suggestions- Accessibility

[ErinOB2]

I was playing around with my 52 remote because my dog sat on it and turned on Closed Captioning, only to realize that there's a shortcut for it at the bottom of the remote. I don't mind this, but I'm a little bit confused as to why it's not clearly marked as such. Upon investigating further I noticed that there are no marked remote shortcuts for accessibility.

I'm aware that there's a section for accessibility under the 'Options' key, but I actually timed it, and it takes about 5.53 seconds to find if you're not familiar with the shortcuts intimately. I was wondering if this caused any frustration for people in mixed households, because people who use accessibility features often live in mixed households- rather, households and families with a mixture of disabled and able-bodied individuals.

Every time people in these mixed families change between who's using the television they have to navigate through two menus just to turn off (or on) certain accessibility features, and there -is- a captioning button, but it's not even clearly marked (it is instead a small button with a bent arrow on the bottom right of the 52 remote). No one would know it was there if they didn't read a guide or press it by accident. That doesn't sound like much of an annoyance, but imagine doing it several times a day for weeks or months and it seems like it would become frustrating.

There are plenty of shortcuts for things 'normal' people would use all the time; it doesn't seem like much of a concession to include a button with a CC square or the accessibility symbol straight on the hopper remote. Why is it an unmarked shortcut instead of something being specific for the deaf//differently-abled community? It seems like an afterthought, and that just...doesn't seem nice to me, I suppose. Deaf and Differently-Abled customers shouldn't have to feel like an afterthought.

Does anyone else think there should be clearly marked accessibility buttons that are immediate shortcuts on the remote instead of menu navigations? I'd love to hear your opinions on the matter. I'm not mad- I'm just curious!

 

[pattykay]

In case you were not aware, the function of those buttons in the lower-left and lower-right corners can be customized for different accessibility settings and shortcuts by changing the Remote Settings in the Menu. (On the newer 54.0 remotes, the buttons are labelled differently than they are on the 52.0 remote. The 54.0 marks those buttons with a Diamond and a Double-Diamond.) So, it is just a one-time setup step in the Menu to customize those buttons for whichever shortcut you want, and then after that it is just one push of the appropriate button each time you want to use that Accessibility setting. If you have a hard time remembering which button does what, you could put stickers on the remote below each button to mark them how you want. To me, the customization makes sense, since not everyone will need every Accessibility setting. I do think it would be a good idea for Dish to print something on the remote below those buttons, saying something to the effect of "The function of these buttons can be customized." and possibly Dish could provide a sheet with stickers to go on the remote and instructions on how to customize the buttons.

 

[DishSubLA]

also the movement is to Voice Control. And in my experience with many people at various disabilities they are far more excited and satisfied with good voice control then they are there any physical type of Remote. this is because every physical remote control is different and going to require learning it from a new and keeping in your head to remember one particular physical device that has a set of buttons from another physical to buy that has a different set of buttons in different places et cetera where each button is etc etc. as the voice control improves and we get more devices like the Echo and whatever else that seems to be the way the future and that seems to be what many of the disabled Community prefer because it seems to be more consistent and doesn't require having to learn new keyboards new remotes with buttons and different places etcetera Etc.

voice dictation and voice command is the future and that will be the real solution for those with impairments. as one example the Dragon software has just totally freed so many people who could not use a keyboard or for whom it is very difficult to learn or very difficult to control their fingers to hit the right keys. of course there is a population who are not able to speak clearly or can't pronounce words that we could easily recognize. however one thing about voice recognition is that you can teach it to recognize your own pronunciation or sounds that you make to match a command. it will take extra training and perhaps some assistance from other people in order to get this process started and going for those who have problems speaking clearly. but once the point of reference is made even grunts can be interpreted as commands or words in a sentence.

finally as of today dish and TiVo are compatible with Amazon's Echo as one example. That's the solution for most people with impairments of course not for everyone. This is a great advantage to those who have Mobility impairments or even the elderly who can't always remember how to work the remote or keep track of are all those buttons are. so even today at this moment when a lot better place than we were just even one year ago.