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Password, Please!

Have you ever had password problems,? If you're online, the answer is probably yes. You go through your litany of passwords until you're locked out, happen onto the correct one, or you have to reset and pick another from your litany or, God forbid, you have to make up a new one! It can be a test of patience for an able-bodied person but consider the challenges to the physically-impaired.

I have A.L.S., Amyotrophic lateral  sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's Disease or Motor Neuron Disease (MND). My disease process has left me a quadriplegic, and I'm fortunate enough to own  a Tobii alternative and augmentative speech device. This device enables me to communicate using eye gaze technology. It's amazing and brilliant and totally infuriating when it doesn't live up to expectations. It doesn't function exactly like your home computer, in that there are a lot of extra steps. For example, typing this blog entry requires forethought and few options for making corrections. I type a line or two, then must press 'Insert Text'. Then press another 'Insert Text' button (virtually). To access special operations, one must press the 'Link' button followed by a combination of numbers that correspond with the operation desired. Choosing the wrong key is extremely easy to do and I have to be vigilant about typos lest I choose the wrong operation. Happens all the time! I was a more accurate typist with my fingers than my eyes!!

Back to passwords. Password retrieval is nightmarish! I've spent, literally, hours plugging in passwords to end up unsuccessful, deciding to sleep on it and try again the next day. Bitter frustration has kept me from favored websites, like PatientsLikeMe for months at a time. I, currently, cannot log into GoodReads due to not remembering my FaceBook password. (I log in by logging through FaceBook.) And not having my Facebook password keeps me from viewing videos and photos and being able to change settings since the Tobii SonoKey menu tiles don't facilitate these activities.

Why not simply change the password? Then I would have get help to change the settings in the control panel because not everything is accessible by eye gaze. Asking for help is not a problem. Getting competent help that won't mess up other parts of my computer is a big problem.

Help, oh help, oh help me, please. Make better solutions for people like me!

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Location: 2720 East Madison Street, Seattle, WA 98112, USA

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