Alexa Accessibility partners with United Ability to make technology more accessible for everyone
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Amazon’s Alexa accessibility team is making strides to accommodate those with disabilities. The leaders of this project say they are working meet the needs of each individual customer through innovative technology.
They say accommodating those with special needs has always been a part of Amazon’s vision, but they are now looking to find ways to map out what the future of accessibility could look like.
Clinic director, Nicole Odrezin, tells CBS42 United Ability in Birmingham is partnering with Amazon’s Alexa accessibility team to help give everyone a voice, regardless of their ability or disability.
Product lead, Juliana Tarpey, says Alexa was built with a natural ability to accommodate individual’s special needs.
“What’s great is that out of the box, Alexa’s great for certain disability groups,” Tarpey said. “So, for someone that is blind they’re able to use their voice to ask Alexa to do things, turn on the lights, call people, etc., but then we needed to move beyond that.”
Tarpey says their team just released Tap to Alexa last week- a feature that helps those with verbal needs to use touch on the Fire tablet.
Now more children and adults with varying needs have a way to communicate independently.
“By simply being able to have access to a tablet that can make specific accommodations according to everyone’s need despite their abilities or disability is a dream come true,” Odrezin said.
This is a dream they hope expands beyond Alabama and across the world.
“The more that a customer can, you know, come to us and say, ‘Hey I love Alexa. I’m able to turn on my lights, start my day, listen to the news and do all of that myself. I’m able to do things I wasn’t able to do before independent of my caregiver,” That’s really exciting for us,” Tarpey said.
Tarpey says this is just the beginning of a long partnership with United Ability in an effort to continue learning and improving so Alexa is one day accessible to everyone.
For more information on Alexa’s accessibility features, you can visit https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=21213735011.
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