Postgraduate researcher Jim Marston is featured in an article titled “How talking signs help the blind” by Victoria Pierce. It appeared in the Chicago Daily Herald January 11, 2003. When in his mid-thirties, Jim lost his eyesight due to macular degeneration. Now in his fifties, he earned a PhD in Geography at UCSB last summer and is working as a researcher in our Department. His dissertation was about “talking signs” – – the devices that send an infrared signal of a message describing where the sign is located and what is there. With the proper receiver, a blind person can listen to the otherwise silent message and better navigate to buildings, bus lines, ticket counters, bathrooms, etc. The Herald article interviewed both Jim, who studied the use of the signs, and Ward Bond, who has a company which installs the signs. Describing how blind people have responded when using the signs, Bond is quoted as saying, “I’ve had blind people cry. It’s absolutely the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to a person who has been blind since birth.” As Jim said, “The talking signs give back independence.”
