Visual Impairment and Inspiration

Ana Moger, 46, began using Inspiration when she started her foundation year at Solent University, Southampton. Now finishing the first year of a Data Analysis degree, Ana explains how using Inspiration, in combination with Dragon Naturally Speaking, has helped her to effectively study with a visual impairment.

What challenges has Inspiration helped you to overcome?

“Breaking down all my ideas. I break down everything into bubbles and it helps me get my ideas very clear. I like to use lots of colours, so I can differentiate everything. In combination with Dragon, it’s so easy to use. I don’t like very complicated software. It’s got diagrams, it’s got arrows. It’s just quick! It’s been really useful for me.”

What do you like about Inspiration?

“It’s so easy to use and it helps me to break down and organise my ideas, which I’ve dictated using Dragon. Using the diagrams I have created, I can even have Inspiration generate my Word essay documents.

I have used Inspiration to break down my course into three years and then in each year, I have two folders. In the folders I have all my referencing, all that we’ve done in class, and my lessons for the year. Everything is broken down for each unit. Each unit is hyperlinked to all these little bits like books, references, ideas, lessons, work, assignments. I’ve even got one for my classes, breaking down all my classes every week. I have everything I learnt in place, and I use this alongside Sonocent Audio Notetaker."

Do you think that Inspiration has made a difference to the grades you achieve?

“Probably, yes. I suffer from depression and Inspiration lets me break things down into chunks. As it is so easy to break down, it probably helps that I can do it in stages, because it’s all there. I just keep adding, and I relate everything and just organise everything with the bubbles.”

How would you rate Inspiration out of 10?

“About eight or nine. Inspiration can really help blind people. I don’t know how many students are registered partially blind or blind, but they should be recommended Inspiration because it’s a very useful tool. Also, my son (15) is severely autistic and he uses my Inspiration. He finds it really useful.”

Note from publisher: Inspiration has a talking interface feature that can be enabled for visually impaired users or emerging readers. This provides an audio description for each button or menu option in the software. Additionally, there is a built in text-to-speech feature, so that any text in a diagram or outline can be read back.

If you would like to learn more about Inspiration, click here.