Hello all,
Is there some kind of orientation or at least a guide for beginning volunteers who try to assist the blind using BeMyEyes? Frequently, I get volunteers who are anxiously trying to help me, but forgetting to listen to the question. A case in point, at about 3:30 this morning--yes I do get up early--I was trying to replace batteries in my bathroom scale, and I misplaced the panel over the batteries. It is early, and my house is pretty much automated, but I was not sure my volunteer had enough light . I have motion sensors that turn on the living room lights to 35%. I do not really know how much light that is, so I was not sure.
Me: Can you see it?
V: I can't see it.
Me: Do you have enough light?
V" I can't see it.
Me: Do you have enough light? Can you see the table and the couch?
V" I can't see it.
It went on for like this for a few minutes going no where fast. I gave up on him and ended the call. I know these people are trying to be helpful, but they really need to listen to the dialog instead of repeating the same statement over and over again. They are too focused on trying to see the objects or using the camera to assist the blind person, and forgetting to listen to the questions being asked. In the end, I did find the panel--about ten feet away from where I dropped it.
The above dialog is just a sample of what I am experiencing, and an extremely simple case to illustrate my point. Sometimes. the questions can be extremely complicated and the person responds in a vague, general way which is not helpful. And follow up questions to clarify their answer is met by the same, exact vague answer.
I want to add that for the most part, the volunteers are great and this is an infrequent but unfortunately not uncommon problem.
feofil
Comments
They're not trained at all
I've had very good experiences with the volunteers, the google support team, not so much, but the volunteers have been great!
If they were trained; it would cut down on the amount of volunteers. That would probably be good but I don't think it will happen.
My One and Only Experience with a Volunteer...
This was a couple years ago, and I had just moved into the apartment where I am now. Our landlord had us converted from radiator heat to individual HVAC systems a few years ago, and for the most part it's been great. What hasn't been so great is the accessibility of these thermostats. So one day I decided to enlist the assistance of a Be My Eyes volunteer. She took her time with me, but we were still unable to figure it out. I wonder if iPhone stands would be of any help when we're talking to one of these wonderful volunteers, or using Be My AI? My father made me a stand for Christmas, and I've had somewhat good luck using it to hold my phone while looking at stuff.
re feofil
In the particular instance with the light, you should have tried altering the light anyway. The volunteer needing more light is a very real possibility. I don't mean to sound harsh. I mean, sure, the volunteer should have specified this when you tried to clarify, but as a precaution you should have increased the light. Maybe you could have hung up the call and called them back. I hope you've got an accessible way of increasing the motion sensors, 35% isn't a huge amount of light. It's better to have at least 60% or 70%. You could have tried asking, 'is it dark'? Or, 'What can you see'? If the answer to either of those questions was 'nothing' or 'it's dark', then it's pretty clear there isn't enough light. You could try putting your light up to 100%, but I wonder if that would create a glare somehow. Stick to at least 70% when you're making a call like that and see how it goes. As for having really complicated questions, try a five-minute free call with Aira, but if your question is that complicated, you might not get your question answered before the five-minutes are up. You could try the Be My Eyes service directory, a company you've bought products from might have signed up to it, and you could get help that way. I always assume Be My Eyes volunteers not part of the specialised help probably don't have a lot of time, so I only ring up for really quick things like finding out the colour of something, or the expiry date on a product. In this particular case, your issue was pretty basic though. After you end the call, there is a very basic feedback feature, you choose the option that says you had a problem or words to that effect.
My point was....
That the volunteer was not listening to my questions. Asking him if it was dark is the same as asking if there was enough light. I did crank up the light, but I could not tell from the feedback I was getting if that was helpful or not. He simply was not listening.
I have had some great experiences with BeMyEyes volunteers. For example, I was trying to retrieve my trash hopper from the end of the driveway over a snow covered driveway. I stood in my garage and pointed my camera down the driveway at the distant hopper, and asked the volunteer if she could see it. She said, "Yes." I then said, "I need to retrieve it." And she got me up and down the driveway with no problem. The snow can cause a blind person using a cane to quickly get disoriented. And no, I did not rely on my volunteer for navigation. I took my cane. She just kept me pointed in the right direction. And we do get serious snow fall two miles south of Lake Ontario.
Occasionally, I ask the volunteer simple questions that require a simple yes or no answer, and I get a rather involved and somewhat ambiguous answer. But for the most part, the app has been a lifesaver for me. It is just these occasional volunteers who tend to forget that there is a dialog going on and just focus on the camera and the initial question.
Thanks for the feedback about the light level. I only use 35% when the house is in "Night" mode and the motion sensors are activated--kind of a night light effect. First thing in the morning, the lights crank up to 60%, and after sunrise but before it really gets light, they go back down to 40%. I do not need the light, but I am just trying to make the house look lived in to deter burglars who might otherwise see a house that is always dark and presume to believe it unoccupied. My dogs do not need it as they are sight hounds and have incredible night vision--two liver coated Bedlington Terriers.
As for trying to identify colors, have you used SeeingAI to recognize colors. It does have a color recognition mode.
BeMyEyes does have its limitations. For example, I tried to use BeMyEyes to help me to determine if my sourdough culture for baking bread was ripe enough to start a levain for bread. "Does it have lots of bubbles around the sides of the jar?" and so on. There is just too much variability in this case to get consistent answers. So I am rethinking that project and hopefully I can find a solution so I can have home made sourdough bread. It is unreasonable to expect volunteers to have this kind of subtle expertise in something as off the main track as this.
feofil
Hit & miss
Sometimes you end up with a really great volunteer who is considerate, patient, and incredibly descriptive.
Other times, you get a (litteral) giggling highschooler who does not know their backside from a dumpster fire.
True story. 🙄
I have had nothing but great…
I have had nothing but great experiences with Be My Eyes volunteers. One other thing that comes to mind is that English may not be the first language for some of these folks, but they are trying to help. Obviously I don't know if that was the case for your volunteer, but I've had that happen before, so there were times I had to rephrase things a few times to get my point across. In such case, it may not be that they are not listening or are not paying attention, but that they either did not understand the question, or don't exactly know how to tell you what you need to know.
re feofil and others
Since you cranked up the light, you did everything you possibly could have done. Some people just aren't capable of listening. In that case, it's extremely frustrating when you know you're doing everything you can on your end, and they're still not listening. I sympathise, I really do. I don't know if you can type anything into the feedback thing. I don't call volunteers on Be My Eyes that much, but when I called them on Saturday and gave a positive experience, I don't remember a field to type any extra info. Maybe there was, but I'm not sure because I would have skipped over it if so, because I didn't have any problems. Incidentally, I find the colour feature with SeeingAI a bit tricky because when there are multiple objects around, which of course there usually are, SeeingAI announces various colours. On Saturday, I was doing my recycling, and I needed to know what colour the bin was in front of me because I nneeded to get the right one for the corresponding bag. So I called up Be My Eyes, told the volunteer I was doing my recycling, and I needed to know what colour the bin was in front of me. I thought it might be green, but wanted to double-check, and I was right. For that sort of thing, I would rather call Be My Eyes than Aira. I would prefer a British volunteer just because somebody living here knows our systems, and I can talk about recycling and the different bins, and they know what I'm talking about instantly, and I don't have to use different words like 'trash' or whatever. As for the bread thing, that's the sort of thing that an Aira agent could help you with. During a free five-minute call, an agent could easily describe the bubbles and mixture to you and so on. They're trained to describe. If you haven't set Aira up, I would strongly recommend it. You can do some quite small but significant things in five minutes. Today I rang Aira up to read me the password for my new router. Justin you've got a point about the language thing, if you call Be My Eyes at strange times of the day, like really late at night or early hours of the morning, you're more likely to get somebody not in your region. I did hear in an interview once that you get put through to people from outside your region if you call at weird times. I've only ever called Be My Eyes during the day, or early in the evening. I wonder if they could implement some sort of age verification thing, or at least ask that people be over 18 during the sign up process if they don't already. Edited to include not being sure about the feedback thing. I just found some posts on Reddit about Be My Eyes, and I read on there something about someone giving feedback.
This has been great
I was afraid to make the original post in this thread feeling it could quickly go negative. However, what I have seen so far has been positive and constructive.
Yes, I do get some weird accented English at 3:30 in the morning. However, I especially like those with British accents as they tend to speak more clearly and elocute better than many Americans, sadly. In addition to being totally blind, I am 99% deaf so British accents--unless its a scouser--are extremely helpful. There was a study recently that pointed out that most of the major news broadcasting services use people with Canadian accents as they are understood seamlessly by a broader demographic of the United States than native American speakers.
Anyway, I will give Aira a try, but starting a sourdough culture is a large investment of flour and takes a week to ten days. And it is better to start it in the summer when the culture spores are more plentiful. But I will check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
feofil
BTW, I chose this alias as feofil--the Cyrillic variant of Theophilos--is a rather important Orthodox Church saint in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Just google "Feofil the Fool." I support Ukraine and any other Democratic government against totalitarianism.
😂
My Yank-slang bringsall the girls to the yard ... 🤣
daytime calls
I would strongly recommend calling during the day or early evening if you can, then you're less likeley to get people with difficult to understand accents or people who might not understand you.
@Brian, that was the…
@Brian, that was the funniest thing I've read all day.
You're welcome. 🙇
You're welcome. 🙇