I’m working on bringing you more tools, encouragement, and entertainment for your eyesight improvement project. I have been critically looking at the limitations of this Website, and the amount of patience you have to have to dig through its contents. It is all quite representative of my attitude (if you want it, you have to work for it a bit). At the same time though, I know we can do better!
A few things I am working on for you:
1. A Better Introduction And Web Interface
You visit the Website today, and it’s quite clearly the handiwork of an old man ophthalmologist with no business authoring Web interfaces. Miles of text, lacking illustrations, cryptic links, and a mish mash of styles and layouts.
I look at it, and I think to myself “hey, if they really want to improve their eyesight, they will read it.”
But anytime I show it to younger generations, I watch the sighs and the head shaking and the clicking about, and the abandoning of it all within a few minutes. I know. You have to be a bit like Indiana Jones, hunting for some remotely hidden treasure. Determination is required.
This is something I hope to minimize a bit, over the coming months.
Whether that will mean rebuilding this site, or adding a new one, remains to be seen. This is working, so I hesitate to change it much. It’s quite possible that we will have an optional new interface, that deals primarily with myopia causes, and the basics on how to fix it – in a more simple, accessible fashion.
2. Better Tools (Low Tech)
I know I am telling you to go out and buy a measuring tape. In this day and age, that’s a bit jarring, and certainly puts a road block in your way. I tell you to go buy or print a Snellen chart, and leave it at that. Picture an old man, keen on being retired, but unable to leave your eyesight health in the hands of greedy corporations. My attitude is a bit of “if I have to keep working, then you will have to, as well”. It’s not appropriate of course, but if you have been reading this site for a while, you probably noticed it anyway.
First step was for me to acknowledge this. I don’t want to learn about what constitutes good Web interfaces, but I will have to. I don’t really want to do the work of having you not have to go out and buy a measuring tape and figure out where to get a Snellen, but I will.
Thank all those kind and unwaveringly patient participants you see in the forum. It’s their positive attitudes that make me give in and work on these skills that I’d rather never have contemplated.
I’m working on bringing you some entertaining eye charts, that will print straight from your printer, at the correct sizes, for various room distances. That should be up quite soon, as long as some planets align.
I’m also working on bringing you a measuring tape, that will eliminate the need for a calculator.
It’s pretty low tech and obvious, but it might be the first one of its kind anyway. Print and use, your own direct-to-diopter measuring tape. No need to mail you a physical object, or for you to go out shopping. I hope to have that online for you in the coming weeks, after I get some of the printer and paper cases tested and worked out.
3. Better Tools (High Tech)
I vowed not to let this site “borrow” more money from me after the first few years.
It’s a bit like owning a vintage car. You spend more time fixing it than doing anything else, and it’ll always eat your money anyways. There is quite a bit of support via the paid course though, so I came up with a new concession:
I will, to a reasonable extent, “match” the contributions that participants make to the program (via the paid course), to work on some more high tech solutions to help you improve your eyesight. This means development for Android and iOS, and using the cameras and some wizzardry to calculate your prescription strength, help you with logs, and even customize the course to suit your own case and degree of progress.
I don’t plan to charge money for these tools. The work is already under way, but there are lots of things to still be worked out. It’s taking a lot of research and third party resources, and I think there is no way around this. We need solutions that speak to the majority audience of myopes and the tools they are used to. This means not just not making you go out shopping for charts and tape measures and figure out your own logs. It does mean that I need to give you some good tools to simplify the “legwork” part of getting into a myopia rehab project.
A client also built a file that will allow you to 3D print a direct-to-diopter measuring tape from a 3D printer. That’s a bit out there though for now, though nothing is off-limits as I’m looking at how to improve this project for you.
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While things may seem fairly quiet when you visit the site, I’m spending lots of time to keep progressing towards more choices for you. If you have feedback and ideas, and as I bring out some of these things, please do feel free to drop me a line or start related threads in the forum.
In the meantime I do hope you’re enjoying the blog, the course, and our interactions.
