[Accessibility] Accessibility Digest, Vol 79, Issue 2

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Hello,

I am slightly not so excited by the idea of voice assistants and the
like in the sense that in general, the text-to-speech engines and voice
recognition systems one may come up with in general will be less
customized to users' needs because in general users who need such
solutions already have their own ones, configured as they like, so it's
IMHO better to integrate well withwhat users have than trying to provide
a replacement which will likely be less efficient for them.

In terms of the data we may need, I think a graph of footways
(sideways and crossroads), so the footways represented as plain OSM ways
rather than just attributes of roads is important so that the routing
algorithms can be applied to provide precise routes for pedestrians. The
two other things I can imagine is data regarding the trafic lights,
whether they make sound or not and the brand, serial number etc. to make
it eaiser tfor users to interact with them and report when they don't
work. It would also be useful to have very precise mapping of building
entrances so that guiding apps can guide blind users accurately towards
them.

Best wishes,

Sébastien.