An innovative approach to outside accessibility

Microsoft Corp. hopes to spur innovation by giving its employees, as well as visitors, a sense of how people with disabilities and the elderly interact with technology.

So a new Microsoft showroom, which officially opened Tuesday in Redmond, features everyday workplace and home settings, albeit with a few extra touches.

There are three cubicles, including that of "Garrrett," who has only limited use of his hands and therefore controls his computer desktop with a reflective dot placed on his forehead, which can be tracked by a webcam.

There's also the living room of retired baby boomer "Anne," complete with a dark wood cabinet that hides an Xbox. She uses the video game console as a way to exercise while playing the "Dance Dance Revolution" video game.

And there's the bedroom of "Vanessa," a third-grader with dyslexia, who can choosebetween just a few options at a time, like "e-mail," "Word," or "Internet," while using her personal computer, thanks to what is essentially a three-key keyboard.

All of the technology in the showroom already is on the market, made either by Microsoft or its partners. And Robert Sinclair, Microsoft's director of accessibility, said it would give Microsoft employees, as well as visiting executives, a way to put their work in the context of people's lives.

"Now we can show these (technologies) in action," he said.

Daniel Hubbell, a technical evangelist at Microsoft, said that in the past, the company had demonstrated some accessibility features individually in a test lab without a "story" behind them.

Now, he said, employees could get a sense of "how they work together and potentially where holes could be."

He added that as new technologies were developed, the showroom would be updated.

On Tuesday, some of the technologies at the showroom were demonstrated by Microsoft employees who themselves have disabilities.

At one cubicle, Loren Mikola, who works with Microsoft's Global Diversity and Inclusion Team and is blind, demonstrated a refreshable Braille display device, which instantly displays Braille characters corresponding to text on a PC or on a phone, so that users with limited vision can still read.

He said he used an older version of the device at his own Microsoft office.

At another cubicle, Greg Smith, a software development engineer who is quadriplegic and has limited use of his hands, showed how he could control the PC's cursor by moving his head because of a webcam that tracked a reflective dot placed there. Two large buttons on the desk served as a way to right or left click.

Sinclair said the goal of Microsoft's Accessibility business unit was to ensure "that everyone can enjoy our products and services," by making the computer easier to see, hear and use.

He said that often features added to improve accessibility, such as Windows Vista's speech-recognition features, which allow users to interact with a PC using their voice, were popular with a broad audience.

Other technology designed as a "fun gadget," such as Vanessa's three-key keyboard, which is made by Art Lebedev Studio, later found followings among people with disabilities, Hubbell said.

"There's a misperception that people with disabilities are not using 'normal' technology," Sinclair said.