Full Transcript
Stephanie Jones:
12,000 cities across the United States, and that is just the beginning. We’re not stopping with 12,000. We want everywhere to have an accessible menu wherever you go.
Jeff Thompson:
Please welcome Stephanie Jones from Menus4All. 50,000 menus.
Stephanie Jones:
That’s just a start. There’s more than 50,000 restaurants in the United States and we want every one of them to be accessible at some point or another.
Jeff Thompson:
Accessible menus anytime, anywhere.
Stephanie Jones:
So whether you’re sitting at your desk right before lunch, whether you’re sitting on the bed before you go out on Friday night, whether you’re sitting at the restaurant, you can go to menus4all.com, M-E-N-U-S, the number four, A-L-L dot C-O-M.
Jeff Thompson:
12,000 cities, 50,000 menus, and updated every 24 hours.
Stephanie Jones:
Yes, it is real. We are out there. It’s ready for use. Anybody can use it. It’s free of charge. And like I said, this is just the beginning of what we want to see with the service.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from The App Store and Google Play Store. That’s two words. Blind abilities. Enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying enable blind abilities. And now from Menus4All, here’s Stephanie Jones. We hope you enjoy.
Stephanie Jones:
Having an accessibility expert as the founder, that’s one thing I’m loving. I mean, everything is built with me in mind.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson and today in the studio we got Stephanie Jones and she is with Menus4All. How are you doing, Stephanie?
Stephanie Jones:
I’m great, Jeff. How are you doing?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m doing good. This is exciting to have something that is designed for the visually impaired and works for the visually impaired as well.
Stephanie Jones:
You’re right. It’s a lot of times we get a lot of products that aren’t designed for us in mind, first and foremost, but with Menus4All, it has been designed to provide accessibility for restaurant menus, and it was created with the blind and visually impaired in mind, first and foremost, but it’s something that anybody can use.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, Stephanie, you’re not just saying this because you think it’s a good product. You actually lost your eyesight, what, 12, 13 years ago?
Stephanie Jones:
I did. I lost my sight 13 years ago. October 13 years ago, to be precise. Yep.
Jeff Thompson:
Just one day. Boom.
Stephanie Jones:
It took about two weeks. I have a condition that caused pressure to build up on my optic nerves, but by the time they realize that my lumbar shunt was no longer working, my optic nerves had been crushed, so it just kind of happened. I was about 20/400 originally. Since then, I’ve had three more shunt failures, and so now I am no light perception at all in my left and in the right, shadows and movement on a good day. Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
After you lost your eyesight, you went to your vocational rehab and got some services and-
Stephanie Jones:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
…ended up getting into the field of teaching people with visual impairments?
Stephanie Jones:
I did. I mean, it wasn’t really practical for me to go back into my pre-med pharmacy background even though I could have probably done it with my eyes closed. No one knew at the time how to make it work for me, so I decided to take my teaching background and start teaching people who were like myself.
Jeff Thompson:
And then you came across this new Menus4All?
Stephanie Jones:
Yes. So about 18 months ago I was teaching my students how to access restaurant menus, and we were actually going to take a field trip to a local restaurant. We were using the Seeing AI app and just trying to be independent, and I got a phone call before the trip and Helen Fernety, who is an accessibility expert for Fortune 100 companies, called and said she had this idea and she’s had wanted to share it with someone in the field. I said, “Well, you know what? That kind of fits with what I’m teaching my class now, so why don’t you come join us at the restaurant?” And she demoed it for us and ever since then I told her I got some ideas, we can make this work, and we have been off and running ever since trying to grow Menus4All. User testing, trying to make it work, and we have finally got it where it’s now working and available.
Jeff Thompson:
And it’s not available just in one local city. It’s available in 12,000 different cities.
Stephanie Jones:
That’s right. 12,000 cities across the United States as of October the first, and that is just the beginning. We’re not stopping with 12,000. We want everywhere to have an accessible menu wherever you go.
Jeff Thompson:
This makes sense. I’m the type of guy that I don’t need to go through the entire menu, and I saw that it works with headings, so you can just probably flip through-
Stephanie Jones:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
… with voiceover or with your jaws or any screen reader. I just want an idea to get me in the ballpark. I don’t usually go into the, “Oh, there’s mustard, ketchup, onions and a pickle with a toothpick in it.” I like the general idea, so that seems really nice to be able to use your headings and go down and just actually glance at the menu.
Stephanie Jones:
And that’s the nice part because you don’t have to listen to all menus. Some menus are huge, 150 items or more. Yes, you can use those navigational gestures that we’re used to and just go heading by heading, but even after that, when you swipe right, there is a range that tells you how many items are in that category and what’s the price range, so if you’re going out and you’re looking at the appetizers and the price range is 7.99 to 14.99, you may decide that that’s not what you want after you look at the range for the entrees, so it helps you make some decisions a little bit better. Even if you don’t want the whole description, it is there because what if you have a food allergy or what if you don’t like the pickle but you want the toothpick?
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Stephanie Jones:
That way you can look at that information as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Why don’t we tell the people how they can find Menus4All?
Stephanie Jones:
All right. They can go from any Internet-connected device. So whether you’re sitting at your desk right before lunch, whether you’re sitting on the bed before you go out on Friday night, whether you’re sitting at the restaurant, you can go to menus4all.com, M-E-N-U-S, the number four, A-L-L dot C-O-M, and you can pull up the service. It’s free of charge, and once you get on the site you can search by current location. So if you’re sitting in the restaurant and if one is available in your area, you can hit that button, it’ll tell you what’s surrounding you. You can look by ZIP code or there are some City Link pages that categorize the restaurant offerings and you can search by your state and city.
Jeff Thompson:
So you can actually just use it to see what places you might want to go to, and then from there, narrow it down to the menu.
Stephanie Jones:
You can, yes. So if you don’t know for sure what you’re interested in … for example, I’ll use Memphis since that’s my hometown. We have 88 accessible restaurants here in Memphis, but I may not want barbecue. I know that’s against Memphis rules, but I may be in the mood for a steak, and so I can actually use the headings and jump to that particular type of restaurant and then narrow my choices down from there.
Jeff Thompson:
Let’s back up to Helen Fernety. How did she and why did she come up with this? I know you talked about how she had an idea, but what inspired her to get into something that’s for the blind and visually impaired?
Stephanie Jones:
Helen is an accessibility expert for Fortune 100 companies and when she was learning about accessibility options at World Services in Little Rock, Arkansas, she got to know several of the students very well. On one particular occasion she took one out, a gentleman, PhD, very smart, very intelligent, but she had no idea how ordering the menu items was going to go, and she essentially ended up reading the restaurant menu to the gentlemen. At that point she kind of thought, “You know what? There’s probably a better way to do this. There’s a way where people like this gentleman can be independent, look at the menu all by themselves, not feel like they’re a burden, not feel like they’re inconveniencing anybody, but just more importantly, just be independent.”
Jeff Thompson:
50,000 menus.
Stephanie Jones:
That’s just a start. We don’t want to stop at 50,000.
Jeff Thompson:
Wow.
Stephanie Jones:
That’s just a start. There’s more than 50,000 restaurants in the United States and we want every one of them to be accessible at one some point or another.
Jeff Thompson:
With that many menus, that many cities, how does the database stay relevant?
Stephanie Jones:
Well, because it is a database, what we’re able to do is when a restaurant makes a change to their menu, the service actually updates every 24 hours.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow.
Stephanie Jones:
Yeah. Technology makes it where we can do a lot of things and very quickly.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really thought through. In the article that I was reading you about Menus4All, it talks about you go get a braille menu. Braille is a tough one to create or produce and to keep it relevant. That’s usually one of the biggest problem.
Stephanie Jones:
That is, but with the Menus4All service, let’s say, for example, you have a braille display and it’s connected to your devices. That means you have a braille menu right there at your fingertips in real time.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. Solved that problem.
Stephanie Jones:
There you go.
Jeff Thompson:
I like this. I like this idea. I like what you’re doing.
Stephanie Jones:
Well, thank you.
Jeff Thompson:
I mean, it’s not just an idea anymore. It’s real.
Stephanie Jones:
Yes, it is real. We are out there. It’s ready for use. Anybody can use it is free of charge, and like I said, this is just the beginning of what we want to see with this service.
Jeff Thompson:
And it’s not device-specific. I like how you mentioned you can use it on your computer, your laptop, your phones, any phone, Android, iOS because it’s web-based and you can access it. I like how you built in, I mentioned it earlier, but the headings just to be able to cruise around a little bit, navigate, swipe to the right.
Stephanie Jones:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
Well thought-out.
Stephanie Jones:
Not only that, there’s low vision settings built into the website, so even if it’s not set up on your phone, maybe you’re new to your visual impairment and really don’t know all the things that your phone or your computer can do. There’s items built into the site. You can enlarge the font, you can change the color background, you can change the magnification all right through the site. You don’t have to do it through your phone, especially if you’re unaware. Or let’s say you’re in the restaurant. Someone else could pull it up and allow you to use it, for example.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And if you’re in a restaurant and they’re not in there, you could suggest to their manager to get in Menus4All.
Stephanie Jones:
Yes, yes. For restaurants, depending upon how they come to our service, for a restaurant, we do some promotional items for that restaurant to make sure the public knows that they’re part of the service. They can then add a link to our website onto their web pages, and we’ll link to theirs from ours. That helps them with their digital accessibility coverage. That happens as well when restaurants come and subscribe to our services.
Jeff Thompson:
Now you yourself being visually impaired slash blind and teaching students, you’ve have had a lot of people test this out?
Stephanie Jones:
Yes. We have met some amazing people along the way. We went to the National Federation for the Blind convention in Orlando last year, did some user testing there. We have had people throughout the United States who have agreed to beta test for us and try it out as we’ve updated and made changes to the website. My students have gotten to play with it a lot here in Memphis and they’ve gotten first access to a lot of the things as we’ve changed it, and it has just been amazing to hear people’s comments and just hear them just be thankful that they can use something like this or that something like this was even created for them.
Jeff Thompson:
In today’s day and age, everyone thinks they have to have an app and everything, but then you run into the problem, “oh, it doesn’t work as good as Android” or “it’s not updated” or “the iOS,” and I mentioned it being on the website, but as you think about that, just like our app for Blind Abilities, but our website, we had to build it like you did. You have to build it so it works and-
Stephanie Jones:
Right.
Jeff Thompson:
… it works across all the platforms. That’s what’s really cool,
Stephanie Jones:
With having an accessibility expert as the founder, that’s one thing I’m loving. I mean, everything is built with me in mind. It works right out the box, and that’s something that’s so important to us, and we want to make sure that the accessibility is first and foremost.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, this is really good. I’m going to try it out. My wife wants to go out tonight and I’m going to pull it up and give it a shot so I don’t have to use the menu when I’m there. I’ll just know it.
Stephanie Jones:
Very good. Maybe you can order her dish as well.
Jeff Thompson:
No, she wants India food. I like it. I like it, but she loves it.
Stephanie Jones:
I gotcha.
Jeff Thompson:
All right. Stephanie Jones, is there anything else you’d like to share with our listeners? How to get ahold of you or how to get ahold of Menus4All?
Stephanie Jones:
If anyone would like more information, of course they can check us out on Facebook. We’re at Menus4All, or if you would like to get ahold of me specifically or if you have a restaurant in mind that you would like to see about adding to the service, you can contact me at sales, S-A-L-E-S at M-E-N-U-S, the number four, A-L-L dot C-O-M, so that’s sales@menus4all.com. We’d love to hear your feedback, love to hear what you think about it, and just know how it’s working for you. And Jeff, I just want to say thanks for this opportunity. This has been great.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, you bet. I’ve got one question from the listeners for you. What’s your favorite app on your iPhone?
Stephanie Jones:
Oh, my Blind Abilities. I use that all day long.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. That’s the best answer. You win.
Stephanie Jones:
That’s right.
Jeff Thompson:
All right.
Stephanie Jones:
That and my Menus4All website. How about that.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. And people can actually once they’re on the site, they can unlike on the iPhone for sure, I know you can save that website as an icon.
Stephanie Jones:
Yes.
Jeff Thompson:
Open up your browser. Go to menus4all.com.
Speaker 3:
Address menus4all.com. Secure and validated connection.
Jeff Thompson:
And down at the bottom of the screen, single finger, double tap on share.
Speaker 3:
Share button.
Jeff Thompson:
And then swipe on down until you come to-
Speaker 3:
Add to home screen button.
Jeff Thompson:
Single finger, double tap.
Speaker 3:
Text field is editing menus4all. 50,000 accessible restaurant menus. City links, menus for A-L-L. Character mode insertion point at end.
Jeff Thompson:
And you can shorten this up like I did to Menus4All.
Speaker 3:
Menus4All add button.
Jeff Thompson:
Okay. Single finger. Double tap brings you right to your home screen where it places the icon and you can check it out.
Speaker 3:
Menus4All.
Jeff Thompson:
Single finger, double tap.
Speaker 3:
Address menus4all.com. Secure and validated connection.
Jeff Thompson:
And there you go. Just a quick and easy step to access menusforall.com by tapping the icon you just created. Menus4All.
Stephanie Jones:
Okay, wonderful.
Jeff Thompson:
Actually, it’s like an app in your phone.
Stephanie Jones:
There you go.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, Stephanie Jones, thank you so much for coming into the Blind Ability studios and sharing Menus4All. Thank you very much.
Stephanie Jones:
Thank you so much, Jeff. Enjoy the menu tonight.
Jeff Thompson:
All right.
Stephanie Jones:
You all have a great day.
Jeff Thompson:
Thank you. Be sure to check out menusforall.com. That’s M-E-N-U-S, the number four, A-L-L.com. And a big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau. I want to thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed, and until next time, bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
Thanks for listening.
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