The tech titan is committed in making features accessible for visually impaired people..
Apple Inc. has always shown impressive commitment to its products’ accessibility features. Recently Mashable posted an inspiring interview of one of the members of tech titan’s accessibility design and quality time, Jordyn Castor. The twenty two years old young engineer is blind who is working with the firm to bolster up its accessibility feature. Castor also endorsed the high level of commitment which the tech titan has towards its accessibility design.
The inspirational engineer was born approximately 4 months earlier and weighed below two pounds. She was underweight and tiny –could fit her grandfather’s palm. Doctors’ predictions for her survival were very thin. But she defied all the predictions and survived however the fight left her with visual impairment leaving Castor since birth. Her disability, however, couldn’t hold her back and she made it to Michigan State University. Back in 2015, she attended a job fair where she met representatives from Cupertino, Calif. firm. She told them how –just a few years earlier –excited she had been when she received an iPad as her 17th birthday gift. The device’s immediate accessibility feature brought her closer to tech and her enthusiasm for tech increased. At the end of the job fair, she ended up having internship in Silicon Valley’s tech giant. Later, she was hired as a full-time employee.
Castor now described her experience in her interview to Mashable in following words: “Everything just worked and was accessible just right out of the box that was something I had never experienced before.”
During her internship tenure, her performance had been quite impressive. Her skills as an advocate for tech accessibility were far too superior and the company didn’t let her go. She was offered a full-time hiring as an engineer on the accessibility design and quality team. Castor describers her team mates as “dedicated” and “passionate.”
US tech behemoth’s senior manager for global accessibility Sarah Herrlinger had a candid talk with Mashable as well. She explained how it is essential to the Californian tech giant to have its accessibility features built-in and charge free. She told that the accessibility features will show up on every device irrespective of the fact that the user actually needs them or not. She further explained that because of their very nature of being built-in, the features are free. She added, “Historically, for the blind and visually impaired community, there are additional things you have to buy or things that you have to do to be able to use technology.” She further added that to work on accessibility a good team with relevant expertise is essential as accessibility is boundary less. The feature is never ending and requires constant updates and bolstering.
For her part, Castor added that working in a field which would directly have an impact on blind community is incredible. She also had a major role in upgrading Apple Swift Playgrounds and making it more accessibility friendly.
Apple dedication to accessibility can be accessed by its watchOS 3. About the device, Herrlinger described that a user can conveniently tell the time however a person with blindness uses VoiceOver. The tech titan however is introducing watchOS 3 which tells time through vibrations.
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