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Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

blog.silktide.com

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Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#31

Post by 5555624 »

Sargis wrote: post #16
kevinconroy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously everyone, heed that advice. Don't wait. Both of my father's retina detached and the only reason he can see today is because he got to the specialist in time for them to fix it. A matter of days can make the difference of vision for the rest of your life. Persistent black spots that "float" around your field of vision need to get checked out ASAP.

I've had several black spots that float around in my vision for over a year now. Is that a sign of retinal detachment? I visited the doctor and he said eye floaters were normal and people with myopia were prone to getting eye floaters.

No, not a detached retina, but get them checked. The first time I had a "floater" was last March. Luckily, I had it checked out. Some blood vessels in the back of my eye were leaking and it was serious enough to require laser surgery. Like someone else said, get them checked the first time and/or if they get worse.

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#32

Post by ZoFreX »

Mahn wrote: post #14

Am I the only one who thought this has startup potential? It sounds like a problem in search of a solution. I can picture for instance a service that would take a page, scan it, remove all the unnecesary clutter and make it as much screen reader friendly as possible.

> I can picture for instance a service that would take a page, scan it, remove all the unnecesary clutter and make it as much screen reader friendly as possible.

If this was technologically achievable, it would be in screen readers already ;)

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#33

Post by kjhughes »

hamidnazari wrote: post #29

By W3C validator do you mean the Markup Validation Service or the Web Accessibility Initiative aka WAI? I think WAI validators were introduced to address the issue you raised in your experiment. Is this true? Anyhow, I can't agree more, "being W3C valid means jack".

While being "W3C valid" (passing validation according to a DTD or schema for the HTML) is insufficient, it's still useful in that tools, including screen readers, can more reliably process the content of a valid page than an invalid page.

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#34

Post by teeray »

digitalengineer wrote: post #10

Here is a tip from someone who lost his sight last year: If you suddenly see little black spots, don't f&##^ing wait and get your eye(s) checked out by a specialist at once! Have a deadline? A demanding client? Or perhaps it's just a really bad headache? Don't wait. I literally waited a whole week and thats waaaay to long and saw the curtain close (literally, that's what it looks like: a curtain closing). Finally (an…

Yikes... I wonder if there's an equivalent alarming-but-seemingly-innocuous situation for hearing. I'd imagine the analog for this would be something like tinnitus... anybody know?

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#35

Post by chime »

nathell wrote: post #8
josscrowcroft wrote: post #4

As great as this article is, the title should be "10 things I learned about accessibility by pretending..." I was hoping it might be about somebody who was 'blind' for a week in everyday life, and the potential shifts in their subjective perception of reality this might have caused.. it's something I've wanted to do for a while – anyone know of anything like that, actually?

Whenever you have the chance of being in Central Europe -- Budapest, Prague or Warsaw -- don't miss the Invisible Exhibition. http://invisibleexhibition.com/ I've been there, and it's been one of the most deeply touching experiences I've ever had. Highly recommended.

I visited "Dialog in the Dark" exhibit in Atlanta with my wife a few years ago. It appears that is permanently closed but they opened a new one in NYC - http://www.dialognyc.com/ - however due to Sandy, it appears that is temporarily closed.

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#36

Post by opminion »

chime wrote: post #35
nathell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever you have the chance of being in Central Europe -- Budapest, Prague or Warsaw -- don't miss the Invisible Exhibition. http://invisibleexhibition.com/ I've been there, and it's been one of the most deeply touching experiences I've ever had. Highly recommended.

I visited "Dialog in the Dark" exhibit in Atlanta with my wife a few years ago. It appears that is permanently closed but they opened a new one in NYC - http://www.dialognyc.com/ - however due to Sandy, it appears that is temporarily closed.

There is one in Hamburg [1], highly recommended.

It consists of a tour with several rooms modelling a variety of features of everyday life, including a boat trip. There is also a bar at the end, where you buy a drink (paying for it was rather humbling for me) and sit down around the guide for a final chat. You never get to see the guide.

You are given a walking stick but for me it was pretty useless, I was stumbling on everything and everyone the same.

They also offer dinners in the dark.

The best part of the experience for me was realising that you are in the blind person's (admittedly fake) world, some form of opposite of when the blind person is in your world when walking down the street and bumping against a car parked in the middle of the street crossing.

[1] http://www.dialog-im-dunkeln.de/

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#37

Post by dmlorenzetti »

As a similar, but easier, experiment, try listening to Adobe Acrobat read a PDF file out loud-- especially if the PDF contains anything at all interesting, like mathematics, figures, tables, or any kind of "float" that pegs to the top of a page as the text flows around it.

While tools are available to let the PDF creator tag the document in order to facilitate reading, in practice they don't seem to be used much, and even then the experience is painful at best.

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#38

Post by shurane »

ZoFreX wrote: post #32
Mahn wrote: post #14

Am I the only one who thought this has startup potential? It sounds like a problem in search of a solution. I can picture for instance a service that would take a page, scan it, remove all the unnecesary clutter and make it as much screen reader friendly as possible.

> I can picture for instance a service that would take a page, scan it, remove all the unnecesary clutter and make it as much screen reader friendly as possible. If this was technologically achievable, it would be in screen readers already ;)

That sounds like something that Readability, Pocket, or Instapaper could very well implement. Considering they already declutter webpages as it is.

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#39

Post by opminion »

Mahn wrote: post #14

Am I the only one who thought this has startup potential? It sounds like a problem in search of a solution. I can picture for instance a service that would take a page, scan it, remove all the unnecesary clutter and make it as much screen reader friendly as possible.

Similar to Opera Mini? or Readability.

Opera Mini requests web pages through Opera Software's servers, which process and compress them before sending them to the mobile phone [...]. The pre-processing increases compatibility with web pages not designed for mobile phones.[1]

On the other hand, I thought that publishing useful accessible HTML content with minimal and logical markup would benefit mobile users and screenreader users at the same time. But, instead, many people would rather have an app for their phone...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Mini

Re: Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week

#40

Post by stephen_g »

digitalengineer wrote: post #25
heyitsnick wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is floaters are quite common and many in the population suffer from them. I've had them for a few years, I visited my optician and he said not to worry, and he could actually 'see' the floaters when he looked at my eye (it's litereally bit of debris floating about in there) so he knew it wasn't anything serious like a retinal tear. He said only if there is a rapid increase in them should I seek emerg…

You are correct: Floaters are normal. Fixed spots are not. Floaters, well they float . You can easily see the difference when you look left and quickly look right. Floaters keep moving a bit because of the motion. Try it in front of a clear blue sky or white wall for best results.

Wow, I get this, but very minor (the bits are mostly transparent and really small, but I can see them looking at the sky). I didn't know for sure whether they were physical objects or something in my mind, but they way they moved made me think they must be physical. Good to know that's actually a thing!
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