Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jovian Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you? I am still on
Speaker 1: vacation and so we are having a rerun episode. This
Speaker 1: episode originally published on July twenty nine. It is called
Speaker 1: right handed bias a sinister problem, and as a left hander,
Speaker 1: I often get real grouchy about having to fumble my
Speaker 1: way through using a lot of common tools that just
Speaker 1: weren't made from my dominant hand. I managed to funnel
Speaker 1: that frustration into an entire episode, and that's what you
Speaker 1: get here. Enjoy. It is a story time you guys. Now,
Speaker 1: those of you who follow my personal account over on Twitter,
Speaker 1: which is at John Strickland j O N. Strickland, if
Speaker 1: you're morbidly curious, those of you who do follow me,
Speaker 1: you might know that I was eagerly anticipating the delivery
Speaker 1: of a Squire Classic Sixties Vibe Stratocaster, an electric guitar.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've done episodes about electric guitars, I've
Speaker 1: talked about them a lot, and I thought, I really
Speaker 1: want one of these it would be really nice to
Speaker 1: have one. This would have been my first six string
Speaker 1: electric guitar, and I figured, since you know, I'm working
Speaker 1: from home now, it would be good to pick up
Speaker 1: a new skill to keep my mind sharp and occupied,
Speaker 1: and you know, to help me get into a sort
Speaker 1: of meditative state to help manage anxiety. By the way, um,
Speaker 1: anxiety is a real pain in the butt, and I
Speaker 1: recommend anyone who has anxiety to look into ways to
Speaker 1: manage it in a really healthy manner, because that stuff
Speaker 1: is no joke and it's obviously getting more challenging to
Speaker 1: deal with that. Anyway, back to my story, I had
Speaker 1: been thinking about getting a guitar, and I wanted it
Speaker 1: to be a decent guitar, you know, something I would
Speaker 1: actually want to pick up and play. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to buy something super cheap and then find out I
Speaker 1: didn't like the feel of it or how it sounded,
Speaker 1: because that would discourage me from playing it. I would
Speaker 1: just set it down and never pick it up again.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I also didn't want to
Speaker 1: go crazy and buy some sort of you know, super
Speaker 1: expensive guitar, because guitars can get real expensive, y'all. I
Speaker 1: mean What if I didn't like playing guitar just because
Speaker 1: I didn't like it? Right, what if I decided that
Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy playing. I am forty five years old
Speaker 1: this year, and skills just don't come to me as
Speaker 1: quickly as they used to. So it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: I could become frustrated, or I could become bored even
Speaker 1: with a really nice guitar, and then just set it
Speaker 1: down and let it collect dust. So I would have
Speaker 1: wasted a lot of money on a really expensive decoration
Speaker 1: at that point, and that would be really irresponsible, even
Speaker 1: in a good economic climate, let alone one is uncertain
Speaker 1: as the one we find ourselves in today. So I
Speaker 1: did what I do. I did a lot of research,
Speaker 1: like a lot of research. My wife was getting amused
Speaker 1: by how frequently I was watching videos about different guitars
Speaker 1: and different price ranges, weighing them, saying, well, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a slightly less expensive guitar, which means
Speaker 1: it's going to have these sort of things that I'll
Speaker 1: have to consider. But but on the other hand, it's
Speaker 1: better than this other guitar, you know. I went through
Speaker 1: all of that. Ultimately I decided I wanted a strato caster,
Speaker 1: a classic electric guitar. The strato caster is made by Fender,
Speaker 1: and I really like the sound of strato casters now.
Speaker 1: I love stuff like surf rock, and Dick Dave, one
Speaker 1: of the most famous surf rock guitarists, played a strat.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted to be financially responsible because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different strato casters out there, and
Speaker 1: generally they mostly share a couple of common traits. Most
Speaker 1: strato casters have three single coil pickups, and the pickups
Speaker 1: are the components that pick up the vibration of the
Speaker 1: strings and then convert that into electric signals that can
Speaker 1: then feed out to an amplifier and speakers. Strats have
Speaker 1: three of these, typically one near the base of the
Speaker 1: neck of the guitar the neck pickup, one in the
Speaker 1: middle of the body of the guitar, and one towards
Speaker 1: the bridge of the guitar. A switch on the strat
Speaker 1: lets you select which pickup or which pair of pickups
Speaker 1: are active at any given time, and that changes the
Speaker 1: sound you get out of the guitar when it plays
Speaker 1: through an amplifier. But beyond these general similarities, there are
Speaker 1: a ton of different options. You can buy a starter
Speaker 1: entry level Strat for less than two hundred dollars, or
Speaker 1: you could go bonkers and buy a mod shop guitar
Speaker 1: for around eight hundred dollars. So yeah, there is a range,
Speaker 1: and of course if you went full custom shop it
Speaker 1: could be way more expensive. So I looked into the
Speaker 1: Squire line of guitars. Now, this is Fenders budget line,
Speaker 1: but they tend to measure up pretty well to guitars
Speaker 1: from the more prestigious official Fender line, particularly in the
Speaker 1: Squire Classic Vibe series, which are guitars they are designed
Speaker 1: to be closer to the style of the classic electric
Speaker 1: guitars of the fifties and sixties. Now, I'm left handed,
Speaker 1: and that's really what I'm going to get into in
Speaker 1: this episode, because being left handed means there are a
Speaker 1: lot of little struggles in your life. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: they aren't particularly meaningful or noteworthy. They tend to mostly
Speaker 1: be slightly frustrating worst, and that's about it most of
Speaker 1: the time. So I want to stress from the beginning
Speaker 1: of this episode that the stuff I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about is really not that big a deal in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things most of the time. But being
Speaker 1: left handed often means that when it comes to purchasing
Speaker 1: stuff where handedness is a factor, like guitars, you're faced
Speaker 1: with fewer options than you're right handed counterparts. For example,
Speaker 1: if you were to go to Fender's website the morning
Speaker 1: that I wrote this, and you were to look at
Speaker 1: the different options for electric guitars that they had in stock,
Speaker 1: you would see at that time that the company had
Speaker 1: one hundred eleven guitars for right handers in stock, for
Speaker 1: left handers eight eight versus one hundred eleven. Now, typically
Speaker 1: a left hander has fewer options, and then fewer choices
Speaker 1: within those options, choices like the color of the guitar,
Speaker 1: for example, So while I could have loved a Candy
Speaker 1: Apple red left handed Squire Classic Sixties Vibes stratocaster, that
Speaker 1: was not an option, Nor could I get the lovely
Speaker 1: Lake Placid blue option that right handers could get. Those
Speaker 1: right handed versions had Candy Apple red and Lake Placid blue,
Speaker 1: but for left handers you didn't have a choice. There
Speaker 1: was only one color option, Sunburst, which sadly was my
Speaker 1: least favorite of the three colors. But hey, them's the brakes.
Speaker 1: And while I wasn't in love with the color. I
Speaker 1: could live with it, and I did love all the
Speaker 1: things I read about the line of guitars, so I
Speaker 1: didn't really let that bother me so much. And before
Speaker 1: anyone pipes up about re stringing a guitar so that
Speaker 1: you can convert a right handed guitar into a left
Speaker 1: handed guitar, yeah, I could technically have purchased a right
Speaker 1: handed Candy Apple red model, taking the strings off, taking
Speaker 1: the nut off the top of the neck, flip the
Speaker 1: nut around, reinserted it, then restrung the guitar so that
Speaker 1: it was a left handed guitar. But that would also
Speaker 1: mean that all the controls for the guitar, like the
Speaker 1: volume and tone knobs and the tremolo or whammy bar
Speaker 1: would have been on the wrong side, and I would
Speaker 1: have to figure out how to deal with that in
Speaker 1: order to play it properly. So I wasn't really keen
Speaker 1: on trying to make a product that had been made
Speaker 1: for a right hander work for a left hander. I
Speaker 1: had a few gift cards for Amazon, not a sponsor,
Speaker 1: and that sealed the deal for me. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use these gift cards toward buying a guitar. I
Speaker 1: would buy a Squire stratocaster for four hundred dollars, which
Speaker 1: is not an insignificant sum of money, particularly if you're
Speaker 1: trying to stay economically responsible during a time of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: But with the gift cards that would bring the price
Speaker 1: down to about half price, and I figured I would
Speaker 1: splurge on myself as sort of a late birthday present.
Speaker 1: I figured, if nothing else, I could consider it an
Speaker 1: investment in my mental health. I placed my order on
Speaker 1: a Saturday, and I was predicted to receive the guitar
Speaker 1: on the following Friday, so a week later. Now, over
Speaker 1: the course of that week, I grew a bit anxious
Speaker 1: because when I would check on the order status, it
Speaker 1: hadn't changed. It had registered order, but it never moved
Speaker 1: to shipping, let alone out for delivery. And then on
Speaker 1: that Friday that I was to receive it, July twenty,
Speaker 1: that was the morning that I wrote this, I finally
Speaker 1: got an email that said my order had been canceled
Speaker 1: due to quote lack of availability end quote. Now, Amazon's
Speaker 1: system had said that there was only one of these
Speaker 1: guitars and stock, but apparently they just couldn't locate it,
Speaker 1: and so I did not get my guitar, though I
Speaker 1: did receive the accessories I had ordered, so now I've
Speaker 1: got a guitar stand and a guitar strap, but no
Speaker 1: guitar to go with it. Sad trombone. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: tell this story just because I'm bummed out and I
Speaker 1: want to grouse about it, though I admit that's definitely
Speaker 1: part of it. I want to talk about the problems
Speaker 1: that left handers face when it comes to certain technologies,
Speaker 1: and how those relatively minor problems can open the door
Speaker 1: to the realization and acknowledgement that other people face much
Speaker 1: more serious challenges when it comes to tech and bias
Speaker 1: and accessibility. And before I get into it too much,
Speaker 1: let's talk about why I'm not upset at Fender Guitars
Speaker 1: for this in general, I'm not even really upset at Amazon.
Speaker 1: I mean, when it comes down to one unit in
Speaker 1: all of Amazon, I imagine it's not that uncommon for
Speaker 1: something to appear in an online inventory, and yet you
Speaker 1: can't actually track down the physical thing when someone places
Speaker 1: in order. You just can't figure out where it is
Speaker 1: and aware how somewhere that's got to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: fairly frequently the prevailing wisdom is that left handers make
Speaker 1: up about ten of the total population. Now that number
Speaker 1: is sometimes disputed. Some argue there are way more lefties
Speaker 1: than that, but the general consensus is that nine out
Speaker 1: of ten people are right handed. So if you are
Speaker 1: making products where handedness matters, it makes far more sense
Speaker 1: to dedicate your focus on the right handers. They make
Speaker 1: up the bulk of the population, they represent your primary customers,
Speaker 1: and that will guide many of your other decisions. For example,
Speaker 1: if what you're making requires mass production, you have to
Speaker 1: create an assembly process, and that assembly process needs to
Speaker 1: be as efficient as possible. Efficiency relates to cost, so
Speaker 1: the more efficient you are able to make the production process,
Speaker 1: the less it costs to make the thing you're making,
Speaker 1: and that means you can be competitive in your pricing.
Speaker 1: When you put your product up on the market against
Speaker 1: products from other companies. You need to charge more than
Speaker 1: it costs to make so that you can make a profit.
Speaker 1: You don't want to sell things at a loss typically,
Speaker 1: but you can also be competitive against those other companies
Speaker 1: that are also making whatever it is you're making. But
Speaker 1: this means your assembly process needs to be fine tuned
Speaker 1: toward that product. You can imagine that there is an
Speaker 1: ideal version of whatever it is you're making. This is
Speaker 1: the model you're working off of. This is what you're
Speaker 1: trying to replicate every single time. So your goal is
Speaker 1: to produce stuff like guitars that match that model as
Speaker 1: much as possible. And with guitars made from wood, this
Speaker 1: is actually impossible. You're never going to have two guitars
Speaker 1: come out exactly the same because there's going to be
Speaker 1: variations in the wood. You'll be able to see and
Speaker 1: maybe even feel minor differences from guitar to guitar, even
Speaker 1: in the same line, even produce just on the same day.
Speaker 1: But the goal is to get each guitar as close
Speaker 1: to this standard as you possibly can, and that means
Speaker 1: that the whole process needs to be precise, consistent, and
Speaker 1: easy to replicate. So the process works great as long
Speaker 1: as you're producing the same thing over and over. You'll
Speaker 1: get small variations, but in general you'll chug along and
Speaker 1: you'll build however many guitars as your facility can manage
Speaker 1: given the process of materials, as long as all these
Speaker 1: guitars require that same process, and that's where the left
Speaker 1: handed problem comes in. To make a left handed guitar,
Speaker 1: you need to flip everything a d eighty degrees. The
Speaker 1: string order is reversed, the headstock has to be flipped,
Speaker 1: the tuners will have to be on the opposite side
Speaker 1: of a right handed guitar. The controls like volume and tone,
Speaker 1: and the tremolo or wamy bar have to be on
Speaker 1: the opposite side. The pickguard has to be flipped. You
Speaker 1: get the idea. The real problem is you can't just
Speaker 1: flip a switch on the assembly line to go from
Speaker 1: right handed to left handed and have the whole process
Speaker 1: pop out ten left handed guitars for every one right
Speaker 1: handed guitars. It doesn't work that way. Instead, you either
Speaker 1: need a parallel assembly line just for left handed guitars,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't make much sense because you're never going
Speaker 1: to need to produce as many left handed guitars, or
Speaker 1: you have to retool your normal assembly process in order
Speaker 1: to occasionally produce some left handed models. Either way, producing
Speaker 1: a left handed guitar isn't as efficient as producing a
Speaker 1: right handed one, and that means it costs more to make.
Speaker 1: Now you could charge more for a left handed guitar,
Speaker 1: and some companies do, or you could resign yourself to
Speaker 1: the fact that you just won't make as much money
Speaker 1: selling a left handed guitar as you would selling a
Speaker 1: right handed guitar. Are either way, you're not likely to
Speaker 1: make that many left handed guitars, and it's important that
Speaker 1: you know I am not criticizing that decision. It makes
Speaker 1: no economic sense to produce left handed anything's in the
Speaker 1: same amount as right handed ones. You would never sell
Speaker 1: them all because there's just not enough left handers to
Speaker 1: make up the market. The same is true for all
Speaker 1: the different options you find with products like guitars. Sure,
Speaker 1: you could spend the time and effort necessary to provide
Speaker 1: the exact same options to lefties as you do to
Speaker 1: right ease, but there's a good chance you would end
Speaker 1: up with a lot of unsold stock. You might eventually
Speaker 1: move that unsold stock by selling products at a huge discount,
Speaker 1: but by then you could be looking at maybe breaking
Speaker 1: even or perhaps even selling them at a loss. It
Speaker 1: makes way more sense to just never make the ding
Speaker 1: dang durned things in the first place. So this means
Speaker 1: that left handers often have to make some compromises when
Speaker 1: it comes to technology. Either we have to make do
Speaker 1: with things that were made for right handers and find
Speaker 1: a way to make it work, or we are left
Speaker 1: with a limited number of options that pales in comparison
Speaker 1: to what is available for right handers. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how the more sinister among us have
Speaker 1: to navigate technology. But first let's take a quick break. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into the history of how
Speaker 1: being left handed is or was a taboo in many cultures.
Speaker 1: That gets outside the realm of tech stuff. But it
Speaker 1: mostly comes down to how groups of people are pretty
Speaker 1: good at identifying individuals who do not fit the norm,
Speaker 1: and then they attempt to find ways to explain why
Speaker 1: that person is different in those ways often can end
Speaker 1: up being negative. Going into left handed technology is interesting
Speaker 1: because in some cultures the typical approach to dealing with
Speaker 1: left handers was to force them to perform tasks as
Speaker 1: a right hander, forcing people to write with their right
Speaker 1: hand even if they were left handed. You hear the
Speaker 1: story all the time, and this is not always easy
Speaker 1: for left handers. I mean, assuming you're not ambidexterous, I
Speaker 1: imagine there are things that you would find fairly simple
Speaker 1: to do with your dominant hand that become frustratingly difficult
Speaker 1: to do with your non dominant hand. I figured we'd
Speaker 1: start with a technology that I found quite vexing in
Speaker 1: my youth, a very simple technology, scissors. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: how scissors work. So scissors are a type of compound machine,
Speaker 1: and a compound machine is one that makes use of
Speaker 1: two or more simple machines. The six simple machines the
Speaker 1: class simple machines are the wheel and axle believer, the
Speaker 1: inclined plane, the pulley, the screw, and the wedge. Now, interestingly,
Speaker 1: the pulley, screw, and wedge are all extensions of the
Speaker 1: first three machines, and simple machines are intended to change
Speaker 1: the magnitude of a force or the direction of that force.
Speaker 1: A pair of scissors consists of two blades, which are
Speaker 1: essentially wedges, and that's one of the simple machines. They
Speaker 1: are also mounted in a cross shape around a fulcrum,
Speaker 1: and that turns the handles of the scissors into levers,
Speaker 1: another simple machine. So pushing the levers together brings the
Speaker 1: wedge blades together, and that's what allows you to cut stuff. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the process of squeezing the handles actually creates pressure that
Speaker 1: squeezes the blades together, not just up and down, but
Speaker 1: left and right, so there's a sort of pinching action
Speaker 1: happening between the blades that allows for a nice clean cut.
Speaker 1: That is, they do this if you happen to be
Speaker 1: using the scissors in the proper hand. If a left
Speaker 1: hander tries to use right handed scissors with their left hand,
Speaker 1: they will find that the blades tend to create a
Speaker 1: space between them as they close, so they close up
Speaker 1: and down, but there's a space left and right that
Speaker 1: allows whatever you're cutting to bend between the blades, which
Speaker 1: usually means you don't tend to cut anything at all,
Speaker 1: or if you do cut, you do so in a
Speaker 1: way where you're maulding whatever it is you're trying to cut.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I ended up
Speaker 1: with what looked like shredded paper instead of a nice
Speaker 1: clean cut. The squeezing action with the left hand just
Speaker 1: creates a force along that full crumb that moves the
Speaker 1: blades apart rather than squeezing them together. Now, left handers
Speaker 1: can attempt to compensate for this by creating a different
Speaker 1: force with their fingers, essentially pushing their thumbs and index
Speaker 1: fingers in a way to create that pinching force. You're
Speaker 1: forcing the blades together. The boy howdy, that is not comfortable.
Speaker 1: It hurts. Moreover, the position of the blades means that
Speaker 1: the top blade is always on the right side. You
Speaker 1: can flip the blades over, but that means the top
Speaker 1: blade is still on the right side. This actually makes
Speaker 1: it really hard for left handers to see what they
Speaker 1: are cutting if they're trying to cut with their left hand,
Speaker 1: because the blade is in the way. Left handed scissors
Speaker 1: have the top blade on the left side rather than
Speaker 1: the right side. That There are so called left handed
Speaker 1: scissors that don't do this, but they are left handed
Speaker 1: only in the sense that they have handles that have
Speaker 1: contours that better fit the left hand. But without changing
Speaker 1: that blade orientation, you really haven't solved the problem. You
Speaker 1: still can't really see what you're cutting, and you're still
Speaker 1: going to be forcing those blades apart from each other. Now.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, I never learned to use left handed scissors
Speaker 1: because when I was going to school, my school just
Speaker 1: didn't have any. I would use right handed scissors, either
Speaker 1: trying desperately to get them to work with my left
Speaker 1: hand or just giving up and using my right hand,
Speaker 1: knowing that whatever I was going to cut was going
Speaker 1: to look awful because of my lack of fine motor
Speaker 1: skills with my non dominant hand. For another common tool,
Speaker 1: one much more advanced than a pair of scissors, let
Speaker 1: us consider the computer mouse. Now, your typical computer mouse
Speaker 1: tends to have at least two buttons, one on the
Speaker 1: left and one on the right. There are ones that don't,
Speaker 1: they're the single button mouse types, like the ones that
Speaker 1: are used with certain max that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: your typical computer mouse has at least two buttons, a
Speaker 1: left click and a right click, and they tend to
Speaker 1: be contoured in such a way the mouse is that
Speaker 1: they have a nice fit with the right hand. They
Speaker 1: don't fit the left hand the same way. They're just
Speaker 1: not contoured that way. And most programs tend to incorporate
Speaker 1: mouse commands by shifting important functions for the keyboard to
Speaker 1: the left side of that keyboard, so that way you've
Speaker 1: got the mouse in your right hand and your left
Speaker 1: hand remains free on the left side of the keyboard
Speaker 1: to do whatever other functions you need to do to
Speaker 1: navigate the program. Computer games tend to be a good
Speaker 1: example of how this plays out in favor of right ees.
Speaker 1: So take a first person shooter game like Doom. The
Speaker 1: mouse controls your point of view or your aim in
Speaker 1: the game. You use your mouse to direct your line
Speaker 1: of sight and thus where you have your big zappy
Speaker 1: gun pointed at any given moment so you can shoot
Speaker 1: all those little demon critters. Your character's movement maps typically
Speaker 1: to the WAZA keys, the W A S D keys,
Speaker 1: W being forward, S being backward, and A and D
Speaker 1: typically being strafe left and strafe right, respectively. In a
Speaker 1: shooting game, you need to have precise aim to compete
Speaker 1: at really high levels. If you watch some pro e
Speaker 1: sports players and you really pay attention to how fast
Speaker 1: and precise they are with their aim, it's incredible, and
Speaker 1: it requires a highly developed fine motor skill set with
Speaker 1: whatever hand you're using to aim. In contrast, your movement
Speaker 1: in these style of games is important, but typically does
Speaker 1: not need the same level of precision as aiming, so
Speaker 1: offloading movement to the non dominant hand isn't a huge problem.
Speaker 1: Left handers have it harder. If they're using a traditional
Speaker 1: right handed set up. They're aiming with their non dominant
Speaker 1: hand and thus they tend to be less precise and
Speaker 1: less accurate. Now I know that's the case with me,
Speaker 1: and of course I'm also older, so my reaction times
Speaker 1: are slowing down too. I guess what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: you really don't want me to be on your Overwatch team.
Speaker 1: There are left handed versions of the computer mouse out there,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we've gone to USB connections rather
Speaker 1: than the old PS slash two ports that computers and
Speaker 1: stuff like keyboards and mice used to depend on. We
Speaker 1: don't use those anymore, which that usually means you actually
Speaker 1: have more options of where you can connect stuff to
Speaker 1: your computer, so cable management isn't as big a pain
Speaker 1: in the neck because you typically have more options of
Speaker 1: where that USB cable can plug into. If the game
Speaker 1: developers thought it through, you might even be able to
Speaker 1: map your computer keys so that your movement stuff can
Speaker 1: go to a different set of four keys, such as I, J, K,
Speaker 1: L or the number pad. If you can't map keys,
Speaker 1: then it means the left hander has to deal with
Speaker 1: sitting in an odd way or positioning their keyboard in
Speaker 1: an offset way so that the right hand can control
Speaker 1: those W A, S, D keys. Now I used video
Speaker 1: games as my example. But of course the computer mouse
Speaker 1: is a standard input device for all sorts of PC programs.
Speaker 1: I'm the only left handed person in my family, so
Speaker 1: our computers at home all had a right handed set up,
Speaker 1: you know, right handed computer mouse and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Likewise, when I got to high school and
Speaker 1: they just started to offer classes using computers, all of
Speaker 1: those machines had a right handed mouse as well. Some
Speaker 1: of the programs would allow you to switch the mouse
Speaker 1: to a left handed mode, but really all that meant
Speaker 1: was that the left and right mouse buttons flipped what
Speaker 1: they did, so that a right mouse click was the
Speaker 1: equivalent to a right hander using a left mouse click.
Speaker 1: It didn't magically change the shape of the mouse or
Speaker 1: how it connected to the PC, so it might still
Speaker 1: not really be convenient. So as a result, I taught
Speaker 1: myself to use a mouse right handed early on. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that big a deal because most of the stuff
Speaker 1: I was doing didn't require lightning, fast reactions or anything,
Speaker 1: so I could take my time moving my wobbly little
Speaker 1: cursor to the right spot on the screen. A few
Speaker 1: times I tried to use a left handed mouse. I
Speaker 1: hated it because all the important keyboard functions were on
Speaker 1: the wrong side of the keyboard, and the user interface
Speaker 1: was clearly biased toward right handers. It was just more convenient,
Speaker 1: though less precise, to use my right hand on the mouse.
Speaker 1: Sticking with video games, let's talk about consoles for a second.
Speaker 1: The standard console controller these days has two thumbsticks, one
Speaker 1: for each thumb. The left thumbstick typically control stuff like movement.
Speaker 1: The right controls stuff like camera angle or aim, so again,
Speaker 1: the task that requires the most precise fine tuning goes
Speaker 1: to the right side. Some games do allow you to
Speaker 1: change this. That's nice, but it's a bit weird when
Speaker 1: you first do it, particularly since a lot of games
Speaker 1: also include platforming elements where you need to access controls
Speaker 1: that are mapped to the buttons on the controller. The
Speaker 1: buttons on most controllers are, you guessed it over, on
Speaker 1: the right side, so you have to take your thumb
Speaker 1: off the right stick to hit the buttons on the
Speaker 1: right side of the controller. If aim is going to
Speaker 1: the left thumbstick and movement is going to the right
Speaker 1: thumb stick, suddenly you can't jump and move at the
Speaker 1: same time because you have to take your thumb off
Speaker 1: the thumbstick, and it has to do all the work.
Speaker 1: You could conceivably buy a really expensive controller with stuff
Speaker 1: like extra paddles and trigger buttons and map things out
Speaker 1: to improve matters, but it's really hard to compensate for
Speaker 1: this design using just a standard controller, and not all
Speaker 1: games allow you to map controls like that. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't mean to suggest that being left handed immediately means
Speaker 1: a person is going to be bad at stuff like
Speaker 1: video games. There are left handed players out there who
Speaker 1: are amazing. Many have spent countless hours training their non
Speaker 1: dominant hand to do more finely tuned tasks, and they
Speaker 1: can compete at a professional level. But for a lot
Speaker 1: of us, these basic approaches to design stand as an
Speaker 1: extra challenge we face on top of whatever it is
Speaker 1: we actually want to do. Now. I mentioned UI or
Speaker 1: user interface a moment ago. The user interface of a
Speaker 1: technology is exactly what it sounds like. It's the method
Speaker 1: by which a user interacts with the technology. It includes
Speaker 1: not just the physical interaction, such as the keyboard and
Speaker 1: mouse of a PC, or the touch screen of a
Speaker 1: smartphone or the controller for a video game console. It
Speaker 1: also includes the actual design of the software and how
Speaker 1: things are laid out, and sometimes developers will build it
Speaker 1: in a system that just favors right handedness in more
Speaker 1: subtle ways. For example, I can't tell you how many
Speaker 1: on screen smartphone keyboards I've used that become a total
Speaker 1: hassle because I would be using my left hand and
Speaker 1: I would hit keys a little to the left of center,
Speaker 1: and the keys really designed to be hit a little
Speaker 1: to the right of center. I've practiced using my right
Speaker 1: index finger to try and type things out much more
Speaker 1: smoothly then if I were to use my left hand.
Speaker 1: But I am left handed. I want to use my
Speaker 1: left hand. I'm faster at it, it's more comfortable, at
Speaker 1: least it would be, but I have to end up
Speaker 1: thinking about aiming a little to the right of where
Speaker 1: I think I need to go in order to hit
Speaker 1: the key I want. Otherwise I'm just getting typos and
Speaker 1: nonsense all the time. This sort of bias in design
Speaker 1: can be found in a lot of other places too.
Speaker 1: For example, the typical student desk tends to have a
Speaker 1: shape that caters to right handers. Often there's a place
Speaker 1: for the right arm to rest while the student is writing,
Speaker 1: whereas on the left side of the desk it's typically open,
Speaker 1: so if you're a lefty, you're writing with no support
Speaker 1: for your left arm. And when I went to high school,
Speaker 1: they had just switched over to these asymmetric desks and
Speaker 1: they had more surface area on the right side. So
Speaker 1: that's great. If you're a right hander, you're notebook is supported,
Speaker 1: you can just right that way. But as a lefty,
Speaker 1: it meant that I had to twist a bit in
Speaker 1: my seat just to write stuff down. Even note books
Speaker 1: are laid out in a way that work better for
Speaker 1: right handers than left handers, at least for those of
Speaker 1: us in the Western hemisphere who are writing left to right.
Speaker 1: The binding of the notebook is on the left side.
Speaker 1: Now that's not in the way if you're a right hander,
Speaker 1: but if you're a lefty, then you've got that binding
Speaker 1: to deal with, which means you're either contorting yourself to
Speaker 1: work around it, or you're starting a good deal further
Speaker 1: into the page than your right handed counterparts are. Curse
Speaker 1: you notebook bindings. For that reason, when I use notebooks,
Speaker 1: I typically either flip them upside down or I flip
Speaker 1: them over and I start from the back and I
Speaker 1: work my way forward that way. The binding is on
Speaker 1: the right side. I still right left to right, but
Speaker 1: now the spiral of rings is on the right hand
Speaker 1: side and they don't get in my way. Now. So far,
Speaker 1: most of the off I've mentioned has been frustrating, but
Speaker 1: ultimately not really that big a deal. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: fun to compensate to interact with a world that was
Speaker 1: designed for people who aren't like you. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, the examples I've used are fairly benign. But
Speaker 1: just you wait, we'll be right back after this short break.
Speaker 1: Left handers aren't strangers to facing struggles using technology meant
Speaker 1: for right handers. And when we're lucky, someone has created
Speaker 1: a left handed version for us to use. When we're
Speaker 1: really lucky, that left handed version works just as well
Speaker 1: as the right handed one does when we're crazy lucky.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is we're doing with that left handed tool
Speaker 1: doesn't otherwise have handedness entering into the picture. But now
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk out chain saws. Yeah, chainsaws. These are
Speaker 1: really useful and potentially extremely dangerous, and their design favors
Speaker 1: right handers, which means that for people like me, they
Speaker 1: become much more potentially dangerous tools. Now chainsaw has two handles.
Speaker 1: One is at the very rear of the chainsaw. That's
Speaker 1: where the throttle control is, and that's meant for the
Speaker 1: dominant hand. Really, it's meant for the right hand. And
Speaker 1: then there's a front handle, and typically that's an arc
Speaker 1: that goes along the top and side the left side
Speaker 1: of the chainsaw. It's meant for the left hand to
Speaker 1: be there to help guide the chainsaw. Many chainsaws have
Speaker 1: that front handle join with the body of the chainsaw
Speaker 1: itself close to the top right side of the device,
Speaker 1: which means that even if you wanted to hold it
Speaker 1: as a left hander, you would be very limited and
Speaker 1: where your right hand could go, they couldn't go all
Speaker 1: the way to the edge because that where the are
Speaker 1: the handle actually joins the body of the chainsaw. But
Speaker 1: if you're holding the chainsaw with your right hand on
Speaker 1: the rear handle, there's plenty of space for your left
Speaker 1: hand to hold onto the front handle. That gives you
Speaker 1: lots of different options for grips when you need to
Speaker 1: use the chainsaw on different orientations, But typically you just
Speaker 1: don't have that level of versatility on the right side
Speaker 1: of the front handle. So if you were to try
Speaker 1: and hold it left handed, you would already be facing
Speaker 1: some limitations and controls really important when you've got a
Speaker 1: whirling chain blade right in front of you. You want
Speaker 1: that dominant hand on the back to control the overall
Speaker 1: motion of the chainsaw and to deal with any kickback
Speaker 1: you might have. The non dominant hand is really meant
Speaker 1: to use to to guide the specific angle of attack
Speaker 1: of the chainsaw. Chainsaws typically have a guard that's called
Speaker 1: a chain break, like a brake, like a kind you
Speaker 1: would have in a car, and that's mounted in front
Speaker 1: of the front handle. The chain break is essentially a
Speaker 1: lever that, if it gets pushed beyond a fail point,
Speaker 1: will cut off power to the blade. So let's say
Speaker 1: that you're using the chainsaw. The chainsaw bucks back so
Speaker 1: that the blade is now arcing up so it would
Speaker 1: be coming towards your head. The lever is positioned in
Speaker 1: such a way that it will make contact with the
Speaker 1: back of your leading hand, your left hand, and it
Speaker 1: will trip that lever, cutting off power to the blade.
Speaker 1: That's the idea. The problem here is that if you're
Speaker 1: using it the other way around, with your left hand
Speaker 1: on the rear handle, your right hand might not be
Speaker 1: in the right position to really engage with that chain break,
Speaker 1: so if something bad happens, there may be no way
Speaker 1: to stop it. That's not great. Or you could be
Speaker 1: operating it as a right hander, but it means your
Speaker 1: non dominant hand is the one that's trying to control
Speaker 1: the overall motion of the blade. That's not a great
Speaker 1: option either. Now I have as chainsaws a few times,
Speaker 1: I've always had to revert to using them as if
Speaker 1: I were right handed, which in my mind, is the
Speaker 1: least bad of all the different options I had in
Speaker 1: front of me. And this is just one example of
Speaker 1: a power tool that is designed to be used by
Speaker 1: right handers. Pretty Much every tool is biased toward being
Speaker 1: right handed. Either the tools are contoured in a way
Speaker 1: where they fit the right hand but not the left,
Speaker 1: or they operate in such a way that you really
Speaker 1: need to be using them in your right hand, or
Speaker 1: the line of sight doesn't really work unless you're using
Speaker 1: it with the right hand dominant side. Whether it's a
Speaker 1: table saw or a drill press or a power drill,
Speaker 1: a lot of these tools just work best if they're
Speaker 1: operated by a right hander, and at worst they can
Speaker 1: be dangerous if they are operated any other way. The
Speaker 1: same thing is true with firearms. Now. I am not
Speaker 1: a gun guy. I have not fired any type of
Speaker 1: firearm in a really long time, but if I did,
Speaker 1: I'd likely be frustrated by the lack of options for me.
Speaker 1: Most handguns that have an external safety catch place that
Speaker 1: on the left side of the gun, so that your
Speaker 1: right thumb can easily disengage the catch whenever you are
Speaker 1: ready to actually fire the handgun. But if you're holding
Speaker 1: this in your left hand, the catches on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the gun from where your thumb rests, it's
Speaker 1: no longer where you can easily disengage it. Many rifles
Speaker 1: are designed specifically to use with the butt of the
Speaker 1: stock up against your right side. They expend spent casings
Speaker 1: out the right side of the firearm, so they're away
Speaker 1: from the shooter. If you were to try and fire
Speaker 1: left handed, you would be dealing with this, and it
Speaker 1: would make the experience less safe for you and as
Speaker 1: well as less safe for anyone who happens to be
Speaker 1: around you. It's not great. Now there are manufacturers that
Speaker 1: make ambidextrous models of firearms, meaning that at least in theory,
Speaker 1: they can be fired either by a right hander or
Speaker 1: a left hander with no real difference in performance. And
Speaker 1: then there are a few that will make left handed
Speaker 1: models of certain firearms, but these tend to be more
Speaker 1: expensive than the exact same models that were made for
Speaker 1: right handers, for much the same reason that it's hard
Speaker 1: to find good options for left handed guitars. That being,
Speaker 1: the manufacturing process has been streamlined to create a certain
Speaker 1: type of product in a very particular way, and that
Speaker 1: process works great when that's all you want to do.
Speaker 1: But if you want to do anything besides make the
Speaker 1: exact same product with the exact same orientation, that assembly
Speaker 1: line cannot really accommodate that. So yeah, we left handers
Speaker 1: need to make do, or maybe spend more money so
Speaker 1: that we don't have to make do. Now, there is
Speaker 1: a small, nearly cottage industry business of creating left handed
Speaker 1: versions of many common utensils, tools, and gadgets. For left handers,
Speaker 1: there are left handed can openers, for example, since using
Speaker 1: a right handed can opener is tricky and at best
Speaker 1: of pain in the well the hands, I guess. For
Speaker 1: left handers, there are rulers that have measurements that go
Speaker 1: from right to left, which is useful if you're a
Speaker 1: lefty and you want to draw a line that is
Speaker 1: a precise length. Otherwise, my mo was to start at
Speaker 1: the end result and work back at zero. So if
Speaker 1: I needed to draw a three inch line, I would
Speaker 1: start on the three inch mark and then draw toward
Speaker 1: the zero because then it was just easier for me
Speaker 1: to see what I was doing. There are left handed
Speaker 1: cork screws because it's easier to use because the twisting
Speaker 1: motion ends up being counterclockwise rather than clockwise. There are
Speaker 1: left handed measuring cups and left handed playing cards. These
Speaker 1: have markings on the opposite side of where you would
Speaker 1: find them on the right handed version or the standard version.
Speaker 1: The products are otherwise identical to right handed whatever's right right.
Speaker 1: A left handed measuring cup is exactly the same as
Speaker 1: a right hand measuring cup, except the markings are on
Speaker 1: the opposite side of the cup. That's it. For that
Speaker 1: wonderful little flip, you're gonna be paying a premium, I mean,
Speaker 1: like sometimes a crazy premium. You might see a measuring
Speaker 1: cup that would cost five bucks end up being a
Speaker 1: twenty dollar cup because it was a left handed one.
Speaker 1: So yes, there is a certain selection of common tools
Speaker 1: and utensils that you can find in a left handed orientation.
Speaker 1: They typically cost more than the right hand version for
Speaker 1: the reasons that I've given already, and sometimes they don't
Speaker 1: even work as well as the right handed versions because
Speaker 1: sometimes they're just made by right handers. But if you look,
Speaker 1: you can often find them. So being left handed in
Speaker 1: a world that has largely been designed by an for
Speaker 1: right handed people isn't always easy or even safe. There
Speaker 1: have even been numerous studies that suggest that left handers
Speaker 1: may have a lower life expectancy than right handers, not
Speaker 1: because we are somehow inherently less healthy, but perhaps because
Speaker 1: we might be a little more accident prone than right handers.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe we're using those right handed chainsaws in
Speaker 1: a way that is most assuredly going to result in catastrophe.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of little tasks that just become
Speaker 1: a touch harder for the poor lefties of us out there.
Speaker 1: All that being said, I chose this topic not just
Speaker 1: a grouse about how irritating it is to be left
Speaker 1: handed sometimes, though again that was a big part of it,
Speaker 1: but to show how this is just one way that
Speaker 1: bias can have an impact on a population. In this case,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about handedness, and it's pretty obvious that most
Speaker 1: of the time the bias against left handers isn't malicious.
Speaker 1: It's not intentional. It's not like right handers are trying
Speaker 1: to wipe out the left handers by creating stuff like
Speaker 1: can openers or pencil sharpeners or chainsaws that really only
Speaker 1: operate properly if they're used as a right handed way.
Speaker 1: They're just making stuff that works for them. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the really insidious things about bias. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be an intentional, malicious thing. When engineers are
Speaker 1: building something, they want to make something that works, and
Speaker 1: you have to consider what the problem is and how
Speaker 1: you intend to solve that problem, and then you design
Speaker 1: that solution. And many times engineers are looking at problems
Speaker 1: from their own perspectives, but not from the perspective of
Speaker 1: someone who is not like them, And for that reason,
Speaker 1: we sometimes get technologies that work really great if you
Speaker 1: happen to match the same general demographic and perspective as
Speaker 1: the engineer who made it, but not so great if
Speaker 1: you don't. This becomes an enormous issue with stuff like accessibility,
Speaker 1: where people who might be differently abled are trying to
Speaker 1: use technology, Those who have challenges with hearing or vision
Speaker 1: or what have you might find it extra difficult to
Speaker 1: make use of certain technologies because those technologies depend rather
Speaker 1: heavily upon faculties that the differently abled may not possess,
Speaker 1: or at least may not possess to the same degree.
Speaker 1: And so a gadget that an able bodied person might
Speaker 1: think is life changing could be completely useless in the
Speaker 1: hands of someone else. And it doesn't always have to
Speaker 1: be that way. Designing things with accessibility in mind presents
Speaker 1: new challenges, no doubt about that. But that's what engineering
Speaker 1: is all about. It's about overcoming challenges. Moreover, it means
Speaker 1: more people can directly benefit from the solutions that engineers create,
Speaker 1: and bias can emerge in lots of other ways. I've
Speaker 1: recently had shows where I've mentioned bias in the design
Speaker 1: of systems that you use artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Speaker 1: If you train a system using a data set that
Speaker 1: is biased, the end result will reflect that bias. For example,
Speaker 1: if you train an image recognition system to identify a
Speaker 1: face and you only train the system using a data
Speaker 1: set that includes photos of white people, that system could
Speaker 1: have problems working when you feed in pictures of people
Speaker 1: who aren't white. We've seen this happen with some pretty
Speaker 1: awful results. More than a few facial recognition systems have
Speaker 1: shown to work well when they're identifying white people, but
Speaker 1: not well whenever trying to identify people of color. That
Speaker 1: bias leads us to a technological kind of racism that
Speaker 1: has real world effects and consequences, much worse effects than
Speaker 1: the little frustrations I've encountered as a left handed person.
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to understand how that all plays
Speaker 1: out in a day to day life, except to know
Speaker 1: that it's just worse than what I have to cope with.
Speaker 1: So that's really the message of this episode. It's not
Speaker 1: that we need more left handed strato caster guitars, though
Speaker 1: that is also true. We do need them, more specifically,
Speaker 1: I need them even more specifically. I just need one, really,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be a while before I can justify
Speaker 1: buying a silver burst left handed strato caster, So get
Speaker 1: on that fender. No, the real message of this episode
Speaker 1: is that the purpose of technology, when you really get
Speaker 1: down to it, is to make our lives better. But
Speaker 1: that's only true if we're designing technology that addresses the
Speaker 1: needs of people in general, not subsets of people or
Speaker 1: through excluding groups of people. Whether you are designing a
Speaker 1: physical gadget or an app or whatever, it is important
Speaker 1: to step outside of yourself and to think about how
Speaker 1: people who are different from you will be accessing and
Speaker 1: experiencing the use of that technology. It could be that
Speaker 1: with just a few tweaks, you could turn what was
Speaker 1: a decent idea into a world changing one. I plan
Speaker 1: on doing more episodes like this one, and I hope
Speaker 1: to get some women on this show to talk about
Speaker 1: how the tech world has tried to cater to women
Speaker 1: in various ways, sometimes successfully and perhaps way too frequently,
Speaker 1: sometimes in colossal failures. Just look at all the pink stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think that that is really a related issue,
Speaker 1: particularly in an industry that is still dominated by male
Speaker 1: designers and engineers and executives. It's a problem that we
Speaker 1: have to confront and fix in order to make stuff
Speaker 1: that really works for everybody, or at least works for
Speaker 1: the intended audience, because otherwise you just get a bunch
Speaker 1: of you know, knuckle headed guys saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: think women like pink things. Let's make it pink. That's
Speaker 1: so not cool. Anyway. This is an issue that obviously
Speaker 1: goes beyond technology, but we see it really with laser
Speaker 1: focus in the tech world over and over again. That's
Speaker 1: why I wanted to bring it up, and I brought
Speaker 1: up the left handed perspective because it's one I can
Speaker 1: speak to directly. It's one that I have experience, and
Speaker 1: I can acknowledge that while it can be frustrating, it's
Speaker 1: nothing like what other people go through all the time
Speaker 1: in their day to day lives. So that's it for
Speaker 1: this episode. More of a kind of abstract approach to technology,
Speaker 1: but one I think is important and our goal, I
Speaker 1: think should always be to create technologies that work for
Speaker 1: as many people as possible, to improve things as much
Speaker 1: as possible, and not just to you know, throw in
Speaker 1: a feature because you think it's cool, or to throw
Speaker 1: in a feature and call it accessibility in order to
Speaker 1: have a little box checked off of your to do list.
Speaker 1: That's not good enough. If you guys have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics of tech stuff, whether it's a specific technology,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a company, maybe it's a person in tech,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a theme, let me know. Reach out on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle is tech Stuff H s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tex Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.