ASL & Accessibility at Microsoft

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It seems the magnitude and thoughtfulness of Microsoft never ceases to amaze me. I recently learned about a team called the Disability Employee Resource Group and found out they do some AMAZING things for Microsoft. Initially I was intrigued by the offering of free sign language classes, but as you'll see from this video, their reach extends far beyond that. Watch and be inspired!




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The Discussion

  • User profile image

    Both my parents are blinds.  I've set up windows media centre with a speech enabled remote so they can control live TV, films, music, recorded TV, rip DVDs and CDs and have it read websites to them in a lovely Scottish voice.  I wish Microsoft would work on this stuff a little more since all this stuff is third party... obviously the tts, speech recognition and wmc is all Microsoft but there's no cohesive "talk to your computer with no other input required" thing going on.  As a system it works really really really well and makes you feel like you're in the future but it also makes you feel like it's being held back from it's real potential.

  • User profile image

    It was so great to see the video and that you're letting people not only inside Microsoft, but in the general public know that accessibility is considered a "form of innovation" around Microsoft.  I also loved hearing that Satya Nadella is a sponsor of the group.  I look forward to seeing more videos and possibly hearing more at future events from Microsoft about the innovations around accessibility.  You mentioned Narrator and Magnifier, but I think there are bunches of improvements that can be made to the user experience around accessibility in all Microsoft products and services.

  • User profile image

    Why not invest more in Windows built in "voices" , after all there is many fonts !

    Perhaps buy the best in the market and include in windows ?


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