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Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

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Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#181

Post by kinow »

mbutsk wrote: post #16

Accessibility testing/engineering is a very important niche within software engineering. You could very easily build a career that will enhance the lives of others in similar situations.

Indeed, we are building a web app now to replace an existing GUI. In our group, in at least two companies we have people with color blindness, so we decided to incorporate WCAG design practices from the beginning.

It's quite hard for us, as we relay on browser extensions to test and tell us whether we are doing accessibility right or not, before we send the app to be tested by our co-workers/users.

These tools lack somewhat, they are not easy to integrate in the build process, and instead developers have to remember to run them, and check different things (e.g. there are multiple types of color-blindness, EU vs. USA regulations for accessibility, ARIA roles/labels where possible for screen readers etc).

So you could definitely start working on something in that area. Maybe more tools, more information, services for testing, consultancy.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#182

Post by mwcampbell »

ddevault wrote: post #173
mwcampbell wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email? Do you also have a speech synthesis plugin for your aerc email client? Or do you use it with a generic screen reader for terminals? If the latter, which screen reader? I've found that, counter-intuitively, a fully accessible GUI program with a good GUI screen reader is easier to use than a screen-oriented terminal program with a screen reader. The troub…

>On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email? Poorly. I want to improve aerc in this respect. For the time being, I use a mix of my braille reader (brltty) and piping emails into vipe so I can use my vim plugin to read them.

Have you ever used a conventional GUI screen reader? Something like NVDA for Windows, VoiceOver for Mac or iOS, Talkback for Android, or Orca for GNOME? Reading a web page or an HTML email with one of those might give you a different perspective on what's possible, and specifically, how much better the experience of reading a hypertext document with a screen reader can be, compared to something like BRLTTY.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#183

Post by dicknuckle »

ddevault wrote: post #13

I recommend using a tiling window manager - they allow you to organize windows logically, rather than spatially. I have also written some plugins for using Vim (text editing) and Weechat (IRC chat) with speech synthesis: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/dotfiles/tree/master/lib/vim/vim... https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/dotfiles/tree/master/.weechat/py... And I have a script for Sway (a tiling window manager) which also gives…

As a side note, weechat runs beautifully in Docker. I access it with Glowingbear but though a terminal it would also be trivial.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#184

Post by ddevault »

mwcampbell wrote: post #182
ddevault wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the days that you turn your monitor off, how do you do email? Poorly. I want to improve aerc in this respect. For the time being, I use a mix of my braille reader (brltty) and piping emails into vipe so I can use my vim plugin to read them.

Have you ever used a conventional GUI screen reader? Something like NVDA for Windows, VoiceOver for Mac or iOS, Talkback for Android, or Orca for GNOME? Reading a web page or an HTML email with one of those might give you a different perspective on what's possible, and specifically, how much better the experience of reading a hypertext document with a screen reader can be, compared to something like BRLTTY.

I have used Orca, and I can't stand it. The main advantage is a global place to route text for speech synthesis, but I simply hate using screenreaders to use applications which are not designed with accessibility in mind. There are few better solutions for browsing the web, though. I've been meaning to try lynx with brltty.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#185

Post by Galaxity »

dang wrote: post #177
Galaxity wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for personal decency toward another human being is a banning offense here?

"Thanks for taking the time to share how superhuman you are" is not "asking for personal decency". Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. We're here for curious conversation, which doesn't go along with the style of argument in which people cast each other's comments in the worst possible light. If you review the site guidelines you'll see that many of them guard against that argument style. That's no acciden…

The person took the time to mention their ability to listen and comprehend two times faster than presumably the average. They didn't not mention the original poster in any sense of compassion, ignoring them.

What is the strongest possible interpretation of what this person said? That which is not a fair understanding of the criticism of my post?

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#186

Post by warent »

zachrip wrote: post #104
RobMurray wrote: post #81

I have been blind since birth. I recommend downloading NVDA, a free screen reader for windows, and getting used to using it for basic computer use. Getting used to hearing the speech as fast as possible is key to being able to use it efficiently. You said you have hearing loss. Is it bad enough to make speech output useless? If so you would need to learn braille. I would never try front end design as I have no idea w…

Fortunately my hearing loss is stable and correctable using hearing aids.

This was my biggest concern. I'm so relieved to hear this and have very high hopes for you!

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#187

Post by warent »

mwcampbell wrote: post #136
RobMurray wrote: post #81

I have been blind since birth. I recommend downloading NVDA, a free screen reader for windows, and getting used to using it for basic computer use. Getting used to hearing the speech as fast as possible is key to being able to use it efficiently. You said you have hearing loss. Is it bad enough to make speech output useless? If so you would need to learn braille. I would never try front end design as I have no idea w…

Not only is Python not problematic when using a screen reader, but there are blind programmers who gladly choose Python over other languages. The NVDA screen reader, mentioned in the parent comment, is developed primarily by blind programmers, in Python. The Orca screen reader for GNOME was written by a blind friend of mine, in Python. I have another blind friend who wrote and sold several accessible apps for Windows…

I've come to understand that this is actually a very powerful reason to actually use tabs instead of spaces for indentation. I used to have the irrational preference of using spaces, but once I learned that screen readers work better with tabs, it was a no-brainer from then on.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#188

Post by trm42 »

Sorry to hear about what's happening to you. Read once about this guy who's using screen reader to code:

https://www.vincit.fi/en/software-development-450-words-per-...

One of the interesting things here is the mention of web frontend frameworks which may make the frontend work possible even without seeing the frontend.

Hope you'll get through the life change. Take care.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#189

Post by eden_hazard »

jedberg wrote: post #129
kolanos wrote: post #47

You can definitely continue as a software engineer. I'm living proof. It won't be easy, especially at first. For a while it will feel like you're working twice as hard just to keep up with your sighted peers. But eventually, the better you get with your tools, you'll find you have some superpowers over your sighted peers. For example, as you get better with a screen reader, you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.7…

> you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.75-2X normal speech. You'll be the only one who can understand your screen reader Huh. I already listen to most podcasts and recorded presentations at 2x. Now you make me wonder if I could process information faster with a screen reader even though my sight works just fine...

I worked with a blind dev and his screen reader is incomprehensible by everyone but him. It had to be at like 5-6x. Guy was a wizard. Sure he had some disadvantages with vision but the guy was wicked fast and would pump out the most code

Re: Ask HN: I'm a software engineer going blind, how should I prepare?

#190

Post by kendallpark »

vidanay wrote: post #68
kolanos wrote: post #47

You can definitely continue as a software engineer. I'm living proof. It won't be easy, especially at first. For a while it will feel like you're working twice as hard just to keep up with your sighted peers. But eventually, the better you get with your tools, you'll find you have some superpowers over your sighted peers. For example, as you get better with a screen reader, you'll be bumping the speech rate up to 1.7…

Your comment about proof reading and errors not sounding right reminds me of the "proper/best" way to learn Morse code for ham radio. Most everyone is familiar with the charts that show A=.- B=-... etc. Lots of beginners try to actually interpret the sounds in their ears and convert that to a letter and then convert a bunch of those to a word. Obviously, that is very processor intensive and has a high failure rate. T…

A while back I worked for a team that had wired up Jenkins to a speaker in the office. Each type of event would trigger a different Zelda sound effect. Victory music for successful deployments, game over music for breaking the build, etc. Notably, dev server exceptions were connected to sword clashing sounds.

It led to debugging situations like this:

"Okay, so that's two clanks when we click on this button, but if we do it on this other page it's only one clank. Hm."

Turns out, there are some bugs that are easier to detect this way. Looking at timestamps doesn't really give a "sense" of whether two events are in a tight causal link. With sound, you can immediately "hear" that two adverse events are occuring at identical intervals every time. What's great is that the sound information doesn't take up any additional attention. It just fades into the background if you don't need it. When there is a pattern, it stands out.

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