I bought a BookSense XT for my mother, who is almost 80 and losing her sight to macular degeneration. I have been downloading audio books from Audible.com for her, but she can't use her iPod anymore because she can't read the display. After looking around, I bought a BookSense XT, but I'm sorry I did. The BookSense isn't suitable for vision-impaired seniors at all. My Mom was looking forward to using it, but has been totally frustrated so far. And I'm angry enough that I'm posting this blog to warn you.
The BookSense hardware is fine; it has the excellent virtue of NOT having a display and using voice response to confirm choices and options - exactly what my Mom needs. But the software is dreadful - horribly complicated, poorly designed, and simply unusable. Inadvertently touching almost any button launches some obscure menu, from which there is no return for a vision-impaired senior.
Here's an example: The big central 'M' button in the middle of the top arrows is the menu button. It looks useful, and its central location on the keypad makes it easy to find. But don't push it or the BookSense will cheerfully announce: "MENU OPEN - EQUALIZER SETTINGS - DIALOG". Huh? Who picked equalizer settings as the function for the most prominent button? And how does Mom get out of this menu and back to her book? (hint: press the 'C' button on the lower left corner). What shit-for-brains engineer thought that was a good idea?
The 'menu' button is not the only booby-trap. There's a 'mode' button on the left side, almost flush to the BookSense case and opposite to the power/pause/play button (a too-clever way to multiplex several usages on a single button). When Mom holds the BookSense in her right hand with her thumb on the play button, she naturally touches the mode button with her forefinger. If she pushes it accidentally - almost inevitable - then the BookSense announces 'Daisy Mode', or whatever mode she has inadvertently found. And this time the 'C' button does not work, there is no return. (hint: press the mode button repeatedly until the BookSense announces 'Media'. Duh!).
Mom is a fighter. She kept trying to use this dreadful device because she didn't want me to think I had wasted my money on it. But every book-listening session so far has ended with the unit in an unusable state, and a plaintive call for help.
The Louder and Softer buttons cleverly announce the volume, for example 'Volume 16', 'Volume 15'. Except that they do it in the new volume so when Mom accidentally lowered the volume to the point where she couldn't hear anything, she thought the unit was dead or powered-down. Pressing louder didn't seem to do anything, although if she had kept trying then it eventually would have worked. Grrrrr. At that point, a senior has to call for help. And it's not just fumble-fingers on the controls, the volume is quite different depending on whether the headset or the external speaker is being used, so switching can leave you in 'seems to be dead' mode.
The BookSense allows you to move backwards and forwards in the book by, say, 60 seconds. That would be awesome, because sometimes you zone out when listening to an audiobook and you want to repeat the last few sentences. But it's so complicated that even I haven't been able to make it work. It involves diving into the menu system, selecting 'Time' as the movement option, then selection how much time (from a few seconds to an hour), and then making the move.
There's a way to drop a bookmark, but each bookmark requires a 3-digit identifier; I haven't figured how to make that work either, so I can't try to explain it to Mom. Might as well not have bookmarks.
I can keep going. The lock/unlock button defeated Mom when it was accidentally turned to lock, easy to do while just holding the unit. The back-arrow moves backwards through the book (I think, maybe it is trying to go to a non-existent bookmark); for Mom, that meant going right back to the start of the book if she mistakenly touched it, with no way to return to her place. The manual is no help; clearly HIMS saved some money by not hiring a documentation writer for this long, confusing, and badly-written text.
Even trying to load an Audible book is a challenge. (Hint: the documentation on the HIMS website is wrong, use the 'GW Micro' driver instead).
For a senior, the BookSense XT is beyond appalling. It is awful, terrible, useless, shockingly incompetent. Maybe it works for impaired students who are naturally digital, maybe it works for sighted people who can see the keys. But it isn't working for my Mom, and it won't work for yours.
It Can Be Fixed...
As I mentioned, there is nothing wrong with the BookSense hardware. The physical design of the player is unexciting but solid and competent. The casing seems rugged enough. With decent software, it could be superb as an audiobook reader for seniors.
Perhaps the "Menu" button would open a list of books, with UP, DOWN, and finally FORWARD to select. Or, perhaps the buttons 1-9 would select one of nine loaded books; press to select and start playing. Get rid of the power button completely and leave it 'always on' - without a display it will run for a few days. Any design that uses simple, obvious ways to activate basic features would be fine.
A week ago, I sent off an email to the CEO of HIMS in South Korea. It was a friendly note, and I offered to provide a design specification - FREE - for a simpler version of the firmware, perhaps called 'BookSense-Senior'. I was happy to invest a few hours if that might help seniors like Mom to a decent product. I would be delighted if HIMS made a pile of money selling a great product to seniors.
And if they weren't interested, I also offered to buy some units wholesale, rewrite the firmware myself, and try to market it to vision-impaired seniors. I don't want to be in this business (I've retired and returned to grad school), but I have the necessary skills and people like Mom need a usable reader. One day, I might need one too.
But I haven't heard back, not even a 'Your call is important to us'. And Mom now leaves her Booksense on the coffee-table so that she can push the Play button without risking to pick it up - because every time she does, she loses her place in the book and I have to come over to restart the player.
If you are trying to find an audiobook reader for a parent whose vision is failing, keep looking. This terribly-designed device won't do the job.
