BmoreArt

Michael Anthony Farley: I’m always interested in how creatives’ own biographies and challenges drive innovation. Could you describe how your own experience inspired ReBokeh?

Rebecca Rosenberg: I got lucky that—by chance—as I got older and grew the shape of my eyes happened to change and my visual acuity improved slightly. But when I was growing up, I had a social worker with the state-funded vision disability services provider, and it seemed growing up the only technology they could provide me with were things that attempted to replace my vision or things that were just literally enormous books. And I remember saying ‘hey, audiobooks do not work for me. I just don’t take information in that way,’ still as an adult, I struggle with podcasts, because I just have to see it too. Because I still had some usable, functional vision.

There were years of them not wanting to give me anything except audio options or a simple glass magnifier that would shatter into a million shards of glass if you dropped it. They wouldn’t teach me braille because they said my vision wasn’t bad enough to justify spending the resources. I said, “Okay, we’re at an impasse here. This isn’t going to work.”

So in highschool they came to me with a device and told me “you’re going to love this!”

I received a device called a RUBY magnifier—a digital device that looks just like your smartphone, but like two inches thick. And it has a user interface that I still—to this day—could not tell you how to use… It’s a wonder it’s as difficult to use as it is! And at the same time, had very, very minimal camera resolution, and it had very, very minimal screen resolution. I kind of couldn’t believe how terrible it was?

And you know, at this point, I’m like, oh, I’ve got to feign gratitude for this… so I say “thank you” And they’re like, but you have to be so careful with it, because it was really expensive.

I was 14, “Cool, how expensive?” They were like $900.

It was $900 in 2013! The highest-end iPhone was cheaper! Crazy! I was like, wait a second… Why can’t I just do this on my smartphone? And that seed was initially planted for what I would ultimately end up doing years later.

Beyond the magnification feature, can you give us some examples of how ReBokeh helps users with vision impairments adjust what they’re seeing?

Contrast, enhancements, brightness, and exposure—that’s a thing that ends up being huge for people, especially in art museums where sometimes the lighting has to be low to protect things.

Being able to make an image artificially brighter for you on your screen is huge, and it makes a very big difference in somebody being able to engage with that thing versus not.

Different color filters, that we’re also now learning not only are useful for people with vision impairments to reduce glare or minimize visual fatigue, but are also useful to help mitigate effects of color blindness and help people identify between colors they wouldn’t otherwise be able to distinguish. We’re starting to see now that it can be useful for people who have dyslexia—not all, but for a portion of people who have dyslexia—color filters can mitigate some of the symptoms of dyslexia and make it easier to read.

We’ve got all sorts of inversion options, which basically just adjust the colors of the world. You can do either black and white or an inverted black and white, or totally color inverted. There’s a lot of specific things like blue and yellow, or black and yellow, that will just change the whole world. Look at those two colors, and those are things people with low vision are used to being able to have access to.

In a lot of different circumstances we can allow people to upload and download things from the app as well as save their references when they find combinations that work for them as well. And now we have this descriptive AI feature. You know, our tool is really geared toward people who have a usable vision but we also know that sometimes in order to be able to see something you actually have to know what you’re seeing first. So if ReBokeh can help describe to people initially what it is they’re looking at, it does, in some ways, help them see it better.

And most of these features are available in the free version, right?

Yes! There is a free version of ReBokeh available on the iOS App Store. Anybody can download it, set up an account, and then you can use the free features. Or you can upgrade to the pro version for all of the features One thing we just built and released—that is not available anywhere except our partners locations—is AI image descriptions, so you can basically kind of pause on an image and it will give you a description of what you’re looking at, which is cool.

That same free app, if you have it downloaded to your device and you visit one of our partner spaces, will automatically unlock all the features when you enter that space. So you’re not adding somebody’s access code, it all happens very seamlessly. And if you’re someone who’s downloading ReBokeh for the first time at one of these locations, you bypass the need to create an account for the time you’re in that space.

It really minimizes the friction for somebody who’s brand new coming into it to get there, download it as an accessibility tool, and immediately use it in its full capacity.

And how did the idea to partner with museums come about? 

A woman named Diane. She lives in New York and subscribes on her own to the premium version of ReBokeh because she loves it so much. She was actually the inspiration for us starting to talk to art museums because she sent me an email one day to the effect Hey, I am an artist and I’m losing my vision because of macular degeneration. I used to love art museums and then I started to really struggle to see anything in them. And I found your tool and it has totally rejuvenated my experience. I can see the colors and the details and all of the brush strokes in a way that I haven’t been able to in a really long time.

She still emails me all the time. She loves using it when she goes to all of her art shows. And she really—in a number of ways—was the inspiration for starting to work with museums.

Can you tell us about how the app has been used in museums?

We are officially working with SAAACAM, the San Antonio African American Community Archive & Museum in Texas. They are one of our partners who have sponsored ReBokeh to be available on their site so people can use it there to better see the things that are on display. They’re moving over the next couple of years into a much larger space and so we’re excited to hopefully be able to support that as well.

We are also working with Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum—that partnership launched back in October..

We did get a contract with the Smithsonian, which is super exciting. So we’re doing a pilot at the Renwick Gallery, and if that goes well, there’s a number of other units within the Smithsonian that want the app to be available.

So that’s really fun, we’ve seen a lot of good feedback. I’m trying to work on some of the museums in New York to see if I can get them to join as well.

Do you personally have any good anecdotes about using the app and experiencing an artwork differently?

Personally, I’ve always been a science girl! But I’m just now—as I’m doing this work—starting to get better at appreciating art and understanding what’s going on. I was doing a demo at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the person I was explaining the app to showed me this quilt. And as I am talking to her, I pulled out ReBokeh to show her how someone might actually use the app to see this piece, and I’m like, “Oh whoa! There are rocks and bones and hair in this!” I was just doing a demo and suddenly got so much more out of this… I hadn’t  known those things were there, which is crazy!

Okay, this is an insane coincidence. I’m pretty sure I know exactly the quilt you’re talking about… it was in the BMA’s Elizabeth Talford Scott retrospective. Right after I met you for the first time at a conference and heard about ReBokeh, I was walking through her daughter Joyce Scott’s retrospective at the BMA with the curator.

And we were talking about how difficult photographing work like this for the catalog must’ve been. And how displaying these fragile, intricate beaded pieces behind plexiglass is necessary to protect them, but how neither experience really captures all the juicy detail of leaning in close. I had left my glasses at home that morning and been thinking about ReBokeh and the idea of using my phone to better observe details, and I zoomed-in on a section of a Joyce Scott beadwork and took a picture to admire all these pixel-like subtle variations in color and to this day that photo is my phone background! 

That is really funny! I mean, and that’s really because there is so much detail in their work! There’s also—and I mean this in a positive way—it’s a lot going on in one space, what we might consider visual clutter. I think a lot of art is like that, and it’s really hard for somebody like me who has a vision impairment to parse out one thing from another when it’s all together. That’s one thing ReBokeh really helps me do. Just by zooming-in and minimizing the amount of visual information helps you to understand what you’re actually looking at.

It was just so interesting! Here was her quilt, and there were rocks in it! I didn’t even know that I didn’t know that!

Speaking of my phone background, I have to ask: ReBokeh is currently only available for IOS, right? Can we expect an Android version anytime soon? This is a selfish question, because I am a dedicated Google Pixel person, largely because I’ve been so spoiled by the camera.

I would like it to be available on Android. But about 85% of people with vision impairments are using iOS devices to begin with because they have better onboard accessibility features. So many of our users don’t necessarily have an iPhone, but if they don’t, they have an iPad that they regularly carry around with them.

So we want there to be an Android version, and there is a faction of people who are pushing me to have an Android version.

The challenge as a company is just that it’s a six-figure project, and we’re just small and can’t undertake that out of nowhere at the moment. But I am exploring some routes that might help us get there sooner than we would otherwise. I get that some people prefer the Android they already have and know. It’s such a learning curve to pick up a new device.

Speaking of which, I think something that’s really unique about your product and approach is that it’s not one-size-fits-all. I hate how so many tech companies think being “disruptive” is telling us what we need and the correct way to do something. Like, who thought we didn’t want the option of a headphone jack anymore?

I’m sure it was a guy who lives in the suburbs of San Jose and drives a Tesla to an office park and thought wireless Bluetooth headphones were “futuristic” and cool. But if you’re riding a bike or standing on crowded public transportation and someone bumps into you it really sucks to have to go find a tiny overpriced ball—whose batteries always die anyway—rolling all over the ground! Can’t wait to put this thing that touched the subway floor back into an orifice! Just let me plug my damn headphones back into my phone! 

I need to get one of those things that goes around your neck and attaches to your headphones!  I don’t need them wired to my phone… I need them wired to my body.

It’s actually very interesting that you bring this up because this is something that I talk about a lot—part of what is so great about ReBokeh is that we’ve said I’m not even going to try to tell you what you need… I’m going to give you the options because you are intelligent and competent and aware enough to tell me what you need, not the other way around.

It’s something that I see a lot, and this comes back to a tech assistive technology startup issue: there’s so many—I hate to say that it’s kids, because a lot of times it’s students—who are like oh my gosh I have this idea for something that’s going to revolutionize life for people who are blind and it’s like… I hate to call out this one company… They’re just the one that I always think of! It’s like a vest that vibrates in every direction to help guide somebody who’s blind around obstacles. And it’s just like… think about it for a minute and wonder if you would ever want to be vibrated from the torso?!

Um, no?

That sounds so unpleasant and blind people are just regular people! And they have solutions already for navigation. They may not be the best but they’re solutions that don’t include being vibrated from the torso!

And so often you see companies like this who have this idea where people who don’t know anything about what it’s like to be blind, or to have low vision, are like oh my gosh that’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard in my life!

These companies raise millions of dollars. They build a product. And then when they finally test it with people who are blind, they get like maybe 200 people in total who buy it ever, and then they go under.

Then these venture capital firms who siphoned millions of dollars into these ideas that they thought were so great get burned. And then when they look at something like ReBokeh that maybe doesn’t have that futuristic “wow factor,” but actually was built with considerations from the low vision community—and actually makes a real difference for a larger number of people—they’re like, yeah, no, we don’t get it. They don’t invest because they have been burned by people.

It’s devastating because they are people who care about accessibility, are people who have chosen to dedicate some amount of their time and their life to building something. And maybe they were wrong, but they thought it was going to be useful to a population that needs accessibility solutions.

It’s devastating that we don’t kind of help redirect them earlier to something that they actually can spend their time on that is going to be usable and useful for the community, and as such financially successful. We’re building this really negative feedback loop for investors when they put money into an accessibility product that doesn’t make sense.

So that’s really something that I think about a lot, and I’m hoping that I can break that cycle with ReBokeh and show that we can do good for people and also make a financial turn at the same time.

It’s not because I personally am money hungry! It’s because if I can prove to even just a couple of investors that accessibility is profitable and can be a good investment, then that opens the doors for more assistive technology companies that are good to be funded.

Then it’s not just that I’ve made a difference in this one group of people—this one population—but that our company has made a difference for an industry.