
Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week (2013) - ColinWright
http://blog.silktide.com/2013/01/things-learned-pretending-to-be-blind-for-a-week
======
bramd
Interesting that some commenters here seem to have an attitude of "let's build
an app for the blind", "there is no hope for the blind" etc. I'm born blind
and build software and do some accessibility consulting for a living.
Fortunately we've reached times where the blind community can build software
themselves.

An excellent example is NVDA[0], an open source screenreader for the Windows
platform, mainly build by two blind guys. With Firefox, I think it is the best
combination for browsing the web these days, even outperforming commercial
screenreaders.

Oh, and if you want to know why semantics are important, grab a screenreader
and read a HN discussion. The lack of nested lists and/or headings to indicate
the relationship between comments makes it just a stream of comments without
any structure. If proper semantics was being used, I could for example skip an
entire subtree of the discussion if the starting comment didn't interest me.

[0]: [http://www.nvaccess.org/](http://www.nvaccess.org/)

~~~
tekacs
> I'm born blind and build software and do some accessibility consulting for a
> living.

I have little to add here beyond the fact that this is one of the coolest
comments I've seen in a long time. :) Whilst I've long known _theoretically_
about the use of screenreaders and such technology, I've never had the chance
to see someone using it in action.

It's good to see that it works and is at least somewhat practical.

------
yaddayadda
First, I applaud David Ball for doing this and sharing his results!

Second, one of the first web application projects that I was a part of I was
assigned as the "accessibility expert". At some point during that project I
was told that the reason it is termed "accessibility" is because it makes the
resource (e.g., website, print page, whatever the resource) more accessible
for everyone, not just for people with physical limitations. The development
version of that application lived on an unmanaged, but live server for more
than a decade before it disappeared; up until its disappearance the
application was still functioning, and could even be used on a mobile phone.
Most of the recommendations I made, all those years ago, went uncontested by
my teammates, but every now and then I had to fight for some aspect and I
would make the "accessibility benefits everyone" speech. The last teammember
to visit our application before it disappeared admitted that it wouldn't have
been able to run on the latest technology if I hadn't been so adamant about
accessibility all those years ago.

------
PhantomGremlin
WARNING: strong opinions, e.g. flames, follow. Don't bother reading if you're
easily offended.

At the rate we're going, most websites will _never_ be easily navigated by
blind people. How do I know? Easy ...

My eyesight isn't as great as it was when I was younger. So I like to set my
"Minimum font size" in Firefox to 18 pt. (Yes I know they're not technically
considered "points" any more). That single simple change fucks up a lot of the
web! Just that, nothing more. And it's something that any web designer could
trivially test for.

And yet they don't bother! Why? Probably because they're mostly self-centered
20-something hipster douchebags, who can't even imagine there's someone with
worse eyesight than they have. Or maybe their sense of "aesthetics" trumps any
consideration of "accessibility". In other words: "Fuck off if you're too old
to comfortably read 10 pt type. We don't need your kind on our website".

Worse, there are a few sites, such as Bloomberg, that somehow manage to trick
Firefox into _not_ rendering their fonts at a minimum 18 pt, but instead
render substantially smaller. That's right, some hipster web designer at
Bloomberg went out of his way to make sure the text displayed is small. He's
probably quite proud of this.

Firefox does works OK on 99% of the web in terms of font size. Unfortunately,
stuff breaks in other ways. E.g. when a large minimum font is selected, text
often simply disappears off to the right of a page. So then a search box is
just not displayed at all, because it's off to the right of the page. Or text
just disappears off the bottom of a block. Probably something to do with fixed
widths, I don't know I'm not an HTML guy.

Chrome apparently has a large contingent of hipster douchebags working on it.
Apparently the concept of "18 pt" is too technical for their genius IQ brains.
So they just have simpler font size selections such as Small, Medium, and
Large. Unfortunately not granular enough when compared to Safari or Firefox.
And Chrome is also far worse than Firefox in displaying pages in tiny type,
even when Font size is set to Large.

Still, lots of sites do it right. E.g. Hacker News is no problem. A very
simple layout and very readable. (Now if they would only fix that expired link
problem).

I repeat, I'm bitching about something that is trivial, a mere inconvenience,
compared to what the blind encounter. And yet I run into many web sites and
browsers that can't even get that little bit right. So what hope is there for
the blind? No nope, none at all!

~~~
jareds
As a totally blind developer I have to disagree. Maybe it's a bit easier for
me since I don't need to worry about font sizes but I'd say 95% or more of the
web is accessible if you are good with screen reading software.

~~~
ctoth
As another totally blind developer I'm going to have to either assume that you
are not experiencing much of the web, or that you are simply lying. 95% of the
web is accessible if you know how to use a screen reader? How about ... Google
Docs, Google Analytics, Adwords, Github Gists, anything with SVG in it, all
the unlabeled flash, all the unicode icons which don't speak, all the
unlabeled links, all the unfilled alt text tags... Every single infographic,
all the popup menus or modal dialogs or popovers which pop up at the top or
bottom of the screen reader's virtual buffers instead of gaining focus when
you invoke them, ... And then you have the stupid stuff. The JS library Github
uses for tool tips renames the title attribute of links to original-title,
which completely blows away the semantic meaning and means no screen reader is
going to read it... But the clever author of the library got the right visuals
so that certainly doesn't matter... Google Instant invites me to turn off
Google Instant, to work better with screen readers... Instead of simply making
Google Instant work better with screen readers. This is an oft-repeated
strategy -- can't spend an hour to make your content accessible for the blind?
Give the blind a lesser version of your product and call it a day.

I'm quite frankly terrified when I hear people on this and other forums go on
about how the web is eating the desktop, because the web as it currently
stands is a dreadfully inaccessible place.

This article has been on HN before, and I think my comment from last time
might be worth reading:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5023447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5023447)

~~~
jareds
We must use different parts of the web then. I don’t use google docs, and if
you really want an online word processor use the web version of Microsoft Word
since they have made the effort to make it accessible. While it is not a good
experience I was just able to create a gist, see
[https://gist.github.com/jareds/8832236](https://gist.github.com/jareds/8832236)
Most of what I use the web for is online shopping, reading news, and technical
documentation. This is generally accessible although I do agree that web apps
like Gmail leave a lot to be desired. That is why I use Mail on OSX or the
mail app on my iPhone. The popups are annoying but usable. If something
doesn’t behave as expected then you should check the bottom of the page to see
if something new appeared. I realize I am not an average blind computer user
but in my case I will stand by my 95% comment. My 95% may be a lot higher than
the average blind user though.

------
Tyrannosaurs
An aside but:

"I once realised when watching a DVD on my Playstation 3 that you can set the
speed to 1.5x. Which means you can finish watching a 2 hour movie in only
1hour 30 mins and still understand what’s going on. “That gives me 30 minutes
of life back!” I said excitedly."

Or you can read the Wikipedia summary in 90 seconds and get 1 hour 58.5
minutes back but that's not really the point.

How about just don't watch the movie? There's no obligation to watch any of
them and there are so many that there's always going to be something you miss
however much you try and cram in.

Watching a movie is something which is meant to be a pleasure, or thought
provoking, or profound or any number of things which are going to be largely
lost at high speed. At that point you're just reducing it to consumption so
you've seen it and maybe it's just me but what's the point of that?

~~~
nitrogen
Some shows are just paced too slowly, but still provide entertainment or
enlightenment. Who are you to care whether a viewer watches such a show at
1.5x speed?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
It's a comment on behavior I've noticed in myself.

A pile of DVDs became something I had to get through, ditto books, games or
albums. Talking to others I found it wasn't just me - that somehow the
important thing had been completing things and enjoying them had become almost
secondary.

Recently I found myself listening to a podcast at 1.5x speed regularly and
after a while it occurred to me that it was because I was resenting the time
it was taking up and that the problem wasn't really that it was taking too
long, it was that I wasn't really enjoying it but was listening out of
obligation (it had popped up in the unplayed list, it must be played!). At
that point I said a silent sorry to Mark and Simon and unsubscribed. I've
similarly quit watching a bunch of TV shows and I'm far happier abandoning
books or games part way through.

Seeing someone talking about watching a movie at 1.5x speed made me think of
that - consumption over enjoyment. Yes there are movies and shows that can be
watched that fast and still enjoyed but given the sheer volume of stuff out
there is that really the best use of an hour and a half even? Surely there was
something good enough that it warranted real time viewing?

Maybe it's not the case here but that's what came to mind.

~~~
shalmanese
I listen to all podcasts at 2x speed to the point where I can't even listen to
them at 1x anymore because the voices sound unnatural. People talk about half
as fast as people read so 2x just normalizes to a comfortable reading speed.

I watch basically all youtube videos at 2x as well (with the html5 player) to
the point where I'll actually shut a video off if the only thing offered is
the old flash player (and ditto applies to vimeo vids).

However, I've never had enjoyed scripted tv shows at 2x speed, I'll usually
dial it back to 1.5x to watch. It's not in an effort to save time, it's that I
genuinely find aural mediums better when sped up.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I find it depends on the podcast. Generally professionally produced radio is
well paced and edited, chatty enthusiast podcasts on the other hand have, for
me at least, a poor information density and I get why someone might listen to
them sped up.

~~~
nooneelse
Some emotive content can get lost in the speed-up too, imho. A caring tone and
cadence can turn into blunt sarcasm at x1.3 and above. I notice it interview
shows like Fresh Air.

------
kendalk
I dated a woman who was born blind. She could listen to JAWS speak text faster
than I can read.

If you really want to know how your website "looks" to a blind person, ask
one. Every state has an association for the blind. I am sure they would be
happy to arrange a time to sit down with you. Expect some honest feedback.

------
huskyr
Very interesting article. I would love a followup about actual things you can
do as a developer to make life easier for users with screen readers.

------
qwerta
I have nearly perfect vision, but I also use accessibility tools. I have
uniform inverse color theme in all programs, IDE, all webpages and even in PDF
reader.

I work 10+ hours a day with large (40"+) screens. White background was very
aggressive towards my eyes and cause of many headaches. After adopting
Solarized it went away.

In case someone is interested here are screenshots of my desktop and some
webpages:

[http://imgbox.com/TiqtcFri](http://imgbox.com/TiqtcFri)

[http://imgbox.com/1PEM5M7U](http://imgbox.com/1PEM5M7U)

[http://imgbox.com/Tpyl5hrq](http://imgbox.com/Tpyl5hrq)

[http://imgbox.com/lxND4eoI](http://imgbox.com/lxND4eoI)

I use KDE and IDEA with Solarized color theme:

[http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized](http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized)

In Chrome you can use this page to filter colors. It has white/black list so
you can set colors per domain:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change-
colors/jbmk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change-
colors/jbmkekhehjedonbhoikhhkmlapalklgn)

------
ewiethoff
Thank you. I would love an article about accessibility for people who must use
voice commands or those who cannot use a pointing device. Dragon is fine with
spoken keyboard commands, but much of the JavaScript out there borks site
navigation by keyboard and control of normal browser functionality by
keyboard.

------
jblok
It's interesting that Facebook and Amazon have a terrible experience for blind
users, considering their wealth of resources. I imagine it is common knowledge
among blind users to expect the mobile site to perform better, if the desktop
site is sucky.

~~~
jareds
I have no issue using the main amazon site with Jaws as a screen reader. I'm
sure part of that is that I've been using Jaws for close to 20 years but it
doesn't appear this guy used navigation by headers which makes amazon quite
usable.

------
NAFV_P
The article mentioned "w3m", never come across it before, although I do have
"lynx" and "elinks". Really impressive.

~~~
kroger
w3m was (is?) the most popular way read html pages in emacs
[http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org](http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org)

------
Jean-Philipe
Hasn't this article been on HN already last year?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020421)
just with a slash in the end, as far as I can tell

------
octo_t
This reminds me of this wired article[1] when Steve Jobs died, whilst not
directly related to blindness - it is touched upon - in my experience few
firms have gotten it as right on accessibility as Apple, and _definitely_
nowhere close several years ago, I haven't checked much in the last few years
on android.

The top comment on Jobs personally intervening when a bluetooth stack had a
bug in an iMac is pretty touching too.

[1] - [http://www.wired.com/business/2011/10/steve-jobs-
disability/](http://www.wired.com/business/2011/10/steve-jobs-disability/)

~~~
jareds
From my experience android accessibility is about where iOS was in iOS 3.1.
Usable but iOS is better.

------
dmlorenzetti
PDF files have similar issues. Acrobat can attempt to read them out loud, but
unless the PDF author adds extensive annotations, Acrobat has no idea about
the "structure" of the document.

For example, headers are just more text. Tables and figures that "float" to
the top of a page, or in any other way interrupt the text, get read in the
visual, not the logical, order. Images get "read" as a stream of binary data.
Equations get mangled horribly. Etc. etc.

~~~
mjmahone17
Is the .tex file typically easier to read/understand? Or is there a way to
compile .tex into something that's easy to read and understand?

~~~
dmlorenzetti
LaTeX, much like HTML, allows you to use either stylistic markup ("put this
bit in a bigger font") or semantic markup ("mark this bit as a headline").

The PdfLaTeX typesetting engine can embed some semantic information into the
PDF. However, it doesn't do everything. For example, I believe it does not
handle the issue with "floats" that I mentioned [1].

I don't know whether there are TeX-aware tools for "reading" a LaTeX input
file out loud (which is what I think you're asking about). But if there was
such a tool, it might well be easier to understand, than listening to a dumb
reading of the resulting typeset PDF.

It is possible to go into an existing PDF file and mark up a lot of these
things, specifically in order to help the reader along. The webmaster where I
work often has to mark up PDF files (usually generated from MS Word documents,
rather than from LaTeX). I've never done it, though, so I don't know what's
involved. My impression is that it's pretty painful.

[1] To make the issue with floats more explicit. You can tell LaTeX to add a
figure, and to "float" it to the top of a page. The typesetting engine will do
so. However, suppose the resulting PDF file ends page 4 with "The figure
clearly shows..." and then starts page 5 with the figure, followed by "... two
trends in the data." Then when the document gets read out loud, the reader
will say "The figure clearly shows", then it will go into a spastic literal
reading of the figure's contents, then it will finish up with "two trends in
the data."

------
RodrigoGil
Like the article. It reminds me the book from Saramago that inspired the
movie: Blindness
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/)).
But it's important to note that it's completely different the case where a
born blind person and a person that becomes blind. So it might be useful to
speak with a born blind person and how they manage these web browsing tasks.

------
Shwanton
Some newer HTML5 elements (Shadow DOM) are supported and some still have a
ways to go. A coworker of mine wrote a great writeup about the state of the
accessibility of the Shadow DOM in modern browsers.
[http://substantial.com/blog/2014/02/05/accessibility-and-
the...](http://substantial.com/blog/2014/02/05/accessibility-and-the-shadow-
dom)

------
digitalengineer
Would it be possible to build 'An app for that?' (E.g. Blind people). Browser
sites and stuff through the app.

~~~
icebraining
That's what screen readers do; a popular one is JAWS:
[http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-
pa...](http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp)

------
dreamdu5t
[http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

------
jpswade
The most useful information I found on accessibility was this video, which
really showed me how the blind use the web:

"Victor Tsaran: An Introduction to Screen Readers"[1].

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrC4R7SsH4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrC4R7SsH4)

------
Aloha
This is one of the reasons I test all the sites I work on with links - I want
to get a clue as to how it will work for someone blind. If were using a
javascript menuing system we add a bottom nav that has discrete links for
every page on the website.

------
ghostfacedbat
For a good 30 seconds I thought that the author had linked to a blank page,
and that it was very elegant epitome of the experience of being blink (the
article initially took unusually long to load on my phone).

