Brian's story

Brian was born with congenital glaucoma. He lost the last of his vision in 2018. Using BWBF’s radio app helps him overcome everyday accessibility barriers to enjoy the radio via a simple, sight loss friendly interface. 

Life in a visual society

“We’re a visual society, so anyone who has partial vision or total loss of vision is always fighting an uphill battle,” reflects Brian. “If accessibility is built in from the ground upwards, it makes life easier and everyone benefits.”  

After a lifetime of encountering obstacles and frustrations navigating the real and online worlds, accessible technology became a passion. 

 “My sight has been up and down like a rollercoaster over the years,” he says, “but that doesn’t stop me still playing around with technology.” 

Overcoming everyday challenges with accessible technology 

“When you first lose your vision, even the most basic things like pouring a cup of tea become a big challenge,” explains Brian. “Likewise, navigating inaccessible websites and technology can get very frustrating.”  

For Brian, BWBF’s Talking Newspaper and Speech Radio apps provided just the sight loss friendly experience he was looking for.  

“I was impressed with the nice, straightforward layout,” he says. “The lovely radio app is really nice because it’s not overcomplicated. With a lot of services now you have to have an account to be able to listen to the radio. For someone who’s new to sight loss, that’s yet another hoop they’ve got to try and jump through before they can even listen to the radio.  

“Having all the stations in one place makes life much easier. Once you put your favourites in there, you haven’t got to keep going back and doing a search. You can just go and hit play and listen!”  

The power of radio and audio memories 

“Radio is such a big thing for my generation,” reflects Brian. “We’ve grown up with it and having access to radio is always going to be priority.”  

“I like finding stations I listened to on holiday,” says Brian, for whom audio can evoke powerful memories. “You can’t beat that. It’s a bit like having photos or videos to look back on. You’ve got that audio reference of good times.”