[R] help for lay person assisting R user with disability

Thu Jun 18 18:51:32 CEST 2015

Almost 20 years ago my son was in the DO-IT program at the University of 
Washington <http://www.washington.edu/doit/>.  They have been very 
proactive in reaching out to other institutions.

They have been solving problems such as yours and I suspect can suggest 
several workable solutions.

Clint

Clint Bowman			INTERNET:	clint at ecy.wa.gov
Air Quality Modeler		INTERNET:	clint at math.utah.edu
Department of Ecology		VOICE:		(360) 407-6815
PO Box 47600			FAX:		(360) 407-7534
Olympia, WA 98504-7600

         USPS:           PO Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504-7600
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2015, Liz Hare wrote:

> Hi Courtney and John,
>
> The RStudio environment mentioned below will not work with speech output (I tried with Window-Eyes awhile ago). Some of my clients use it but I have no experience with it. Since the student is partially sighted, they might be able to customize the environment with big fonts and contrast, I’m just not sure.
>
> Using a screen reader like Window-Eyes, the student could use the R GUI environment, although it’s a little frustrating because it doesn’t speak a lot and you need to use the mouse keys a lot.
>
> The other option if you have to stick with Windows  is to run R at the command prompt, which makes interaction slightly easier but you’d have to figure out how to log the output.
>
> What is being recommended for the rest of the students in the class? Ideally, this student’s experience should be as close as possible to the others’.
>
> Liz
>> On Jun 18, 2015, at 12:17 PM, John McKown <john.archie.mckown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Courtney Bryant <cbryant at andrew.cmu.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Good Morning,
>>> I am currently working with a disabled R user who is a student here at
>>> CMU.  The student has both sight and mobility issues.  The student has
>>> asked for an assistant who is well versed in R to enter data for her, which
>>> we are having a hard time finding.  I would like information from R
>>> developers/users about how/how well R interfaces with Excel (an easier
>>> skill set to find!)   In your opinion, could it be as easy as uploading
>>> data from excel into R?
>>>
>>> Also, do you know of a way to enlarge the R interface or otherwise assist
>>> in making the program accessible to a low vision person?  My  limited
>>> understanding leads me to believe that screen magnifiers like zoom text
>>> don't work particularly well.  If you have information on that, I would
>>> very much appreciate it.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help and for bearing with me!
>>> Courtney
>>>
>>
>> I am a bit confused (a normal condition for me). Is the student writing R
>> code or is the student running a application written in R? Also, since you
>> mentioned Excel, I am assuming that the student is using a PC running
>> Windows as opposed to Linux or a Mac.
>>
>> If the student is writing R code, then I'd suggest that your computer
>> support person install Rstudio. It is cost free and can be downloaded here:
>> http://www.rstudio.com/ . The installer can then customize Rstudio to use a
>> really large font, if that would be helpful. Please forgive my lack of
>> knowledge about accessibility issues. If the student has trouble typing
>> (mobility issue?), this likely won't help. Would a speech to text / text to
>> speech interface help instead of a screen magnifier? I know next to nothing
>> about these tools, other than that they exist.
>>
>> ===
>>
>> If the student is running an R application (which is what "enter data for
>> her" implies to me), then any accessibility issues would need to be
>> addressed in the application itself. But I don't understand why a "data
>> entry" assistant would need any skills in R itself in order to enter data
>> into it. But without knowing more, that's about all that I can say. One
>> thought: CMU has a college teaching "electrical and computer engineering".
>> Depending on what that means, perhaps someone from that college (professor,
>> TA, or grad student) could see what your student is doing and perhaps have
>> some insights on how to help. Or is there a "computer club" on campus where
>> some geeky student might be found? You might look here:
>> http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/ If these are true geeks (and the web site
>> sounds promising), then a lure of beer & pizza would likely be irresistible
>> <grin>.
>>
>> ===
>>
>> For interfacing R with Excel, you might want to look at RExcel here:
>> http://rcom.univie.ac.at/download.html#RExcel . It has a free student
>> version. But is this more for an Excel user who wants to use R for
>> analysis, not an R user wanting to use Excel for "data entry".
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Yoda of Borg, we are. Futile, resistance is, yes. Assimilated, you will be.
>>
>> My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down by the
>> seashore.
>> If someone tell you that nothing is impossible:
>> Ask him to dribble a football.
>>
>> He's about as useful as a wax frying pan.
>>
>> 10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone
>>
>> Maranatha! <><
>> John McKown
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
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>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> Liz Hare, PhD
> Dog Genetics LLC
> doggene at earthlink.net
> http://www.doggenetics.com <http://www.doggenetics.com/>
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>