Dolphin's New Blindness Product Manager
Congratulations Dave Williams
3rd Dec, 2007
Dolphin Computer Access was today delighted to announce the promotion of Dave Williams to the new role of Blindness Product Manager.
Dave has certainly been on a real rollercoaster ride since April 2006, when he jumped at the chance to work for Dolphin (a world leader in the development of screen reading software for people who are blind). Upon his recruitment to the Dolphin Product Support team, his passion for user oriented design was quickly spotted and he was rapidly promoted to the role of Mobile Product Manager.
Tasked with working on the design of a new Dolphin screen reader for Windows Mobile SmartPhones, Dave focused his energies on ease of use and intuitive design – offering his visually impaired peers, and himself, access to a range of main stream devices. All this hard work paid off and only a year after Dave joined Dolphin, Smart Hal was born in April 2007. Launched in London in partnership with Microsoft and RNIB, Smart Hal has gone on to receive rave reviews in Europe, North America and beyond. Smart Hal’s innovative licensing arrangements have had far reaching and positive ramifications for users worldwide.
Dave was quickly despatched on a month long product tour of the US and thoroughly enjoyed his modelling debut, as Mr. July in this year’s Microsoft UK citizenship calendar. Dave was also extremely honoured to be invited to appear as a panellist on the Microsoft Transforming Lives event held at Westminster, alongside Anne McGuire MP for Disabilities and Rob Sinclair Director of Accessibility at Microsoft.
One thing is certain Dave’s entry into the Access Technology business has certainly created quite a stir!
As the new Blindness Product Manager, his remit has broadened to include Dolphin desktop screen reading technology. This provides speech output, both Braille Input and Output for Dolphin’s Hal Screen Reader and SuperNova Screen Reader/Magnifier products. Dave hopes to bring a new wave of functionality, paying close attention to the needs of his customers and to steer his products into a new era of accessibility and usability.
“Significant internal changes within Dolphin have seen a real shift in attitude towards customer focused design. Access technology plays a vital role in my life and in the lives of countless blind people from around the world. I feel excited and honoured to have been given the opportunity to work closely with Dolphin’s Development, Design, Marketing and Support teams to ensure Hal and SuperNova exceed the user's expectations. I hope to make 2008 a really exciting year for Dolphin customers with significant improvements in Speech and Braille.”
Dave is also passionate is Braille and equally Dolphin’s Braille display support will not go unnoticed under Dave’s product leadership.
