Joint perspectives

Interview with Valérie Renaudin, Director of the GEOLOC laboratory, Michel Ferrant, a volunteer with the Nantes branch of the Valentin Haüy Association, and David Galantin, a member of the CLISSAA Voir et Agir association.

Valérie Renaudin: For the inmob project, we needed visually impaired testers. So we contacted local associations. But once we were out in the field with the volunteers, we needed to be able to interact with them directly and invite them to share their experiences. And that's when we discovered that there was an entire vocabulary and culture that we didn’t know. ACCESS was born to help us work with visually impaired people.

Michel Ferrant: I volunteered because I've been interested in anything to do with technology for a long time. I'm also a volunteer trainer in specialised computing. So I was hoping to help move things forward.

David Galantin: I was interested in what Valérie and her team had to offer. Improving how we get around is a subject that concerns all visually impaired people, and accessible information goes hand in hand with it all.

Michel: I found it interesting to spend time with young people, young researchers, sometimes from abroad, to talk with them and share our points of view.

David: I was curious to learn more about the sometimes surprising way researchers work! For inmob, we were doing laps around the track with sensors on us - we didn’t how it would connect with reality. But the researchers were there to explain their work to us. Our discussions with the whole team opened my mind to realities that I didn't know about, and they discovered how to include visually impaired people. With ACCESS, they've done a great job: the contrast, fonts and texts make their website accessible.

Valérie: We've been able to implement tools that make our work more accessible and communication easier with our potential testers, in particular with a new online form.The positive feedback we’ve received from disability networks about the accessibility of the university's website shows that this long-term work is bearing fruit.