Siri and the visually impaired

I would like to share how Siri became a life line for my 90 year old mother-in-law when she lost her vision.

The simple act of being able to call her doctor, her pharmacy or even a family member became impossible. I took an old iPhone of mine, removed all the security locks so that it would never lock and wiped as many apps as possible from the phone. I was going for simplicity. I then added contacts based on what my mother-in-law would ask for, I.e., "Eye Doctor", "Pharmacy", "Shuttle Bus"or a persons first name only.

It took a few 'lessons' but she was able to learn how to 'ask Siri' to make these calls for her. She still needed a lan-line phone for incoming calls, but she no longer needed to ask someone else to come help her make her calls.

This simple feature renewed her connection to the outside world and new friends, doctors or services could be easily added.

I have to share that when at times Siri was not 'listening' well and offered options such as websites rather than making the calls, we learned that she actually thought that she had been connecting with a live person named Siri who she thought was perhaps having hearing issues. (that gave us days of laughing)

We are now moving into needing voice command options that Siri cannot offer, like 'Read My Book' from Audible.com but if you have someone that needs to be able to call out - Siri can be that life line that you didn't know you already had.