Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by pja » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 2:55 PM UTC

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.

IIRC the really small white ones that you see when looking up at a blue sky are actually white blood cells in the arteries on the inner surface of your eyeball.

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

#42

Post by chewxy » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

jareds wrote: post #22

As a totally blind software developer everything he has in the article is accurate. There are two things he did not do though which I do on a regular basis and assume most other blind users do as well. First is using the feature of screen readers that allow you to view all links on a page as one giant list. While this isn’t helpful when initially browsing a page if you use a site on a regular basis and know where you…

I don't mean to be insensitive, but I am morbidly curious about your condition (mainly because 23andme said I am prone to macular degeneration, a thought that terrifies me).

How does one program without sight? I have done something similar to OP on my latest project (I tried to use my product blindfolded + screenreader), and I found that it was a terrible experience. My site was absolute shite. It was only through my own familiarity with it that I was able to navigate it.

I would imagine trying to develop sightless itself would be a feat, so my question is: how? were you sighted before you lost your vision? Tactile feedback from the keyboard or voice commands?

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

#43

Post by ebiester » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #6

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "sighted" is preferable to "healthy". Just for future reference.

I was trying to find a succinct way to express that I had no disabilities rather than just that I can see. I'm aware my phrasing was awkward but hope people would realise there is no offence intended.

The politically correct term is "temporarily abled." This sounds goofy at first, until we realize that if we live long enough, nearly all of us lose our abilities in one way or another.

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

#44

Post by lesterbuck » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

jareds wrote: post #22

As a totally blind software developer everything he has in the article is accurate. There are two things he did not do though which I do on a regular basis and assume most other blind users do as well. First is using the feature of screen readers that allow you to view all links on a page as one giant list. While this isn’t helpful when initially browsing a page if you use a site on a regular basis and know where you…

Jared, I have a few projects that target blind and low vision users, and I'd like your feedback. My email is in my profile.

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

#45

Post by alanctgardner2 » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:02 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #43

lmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to find a succinct way to express that I had no disabilities rather than just that I can see. I'm aware my phrasing was awkward but hope people would realise there is no offence intended.

The politically correct term is "temporarily abled." This sounds goofy at first, until we realize that if we live long enough, nearly all of us lose our abilities in one way or another.

I've never heard this term, so far it looks like it has pretty niche use. In my experience I would just describe myself as "someone without a disability", "a person who does not have a disability".

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

#46

Post by DigitalJack » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

teeray wrote: post #34

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?

Any rapid change that you notice in your body should be checked out by a doctor.

Tinnitus is frequently a result of hearing loss, I couldn't tell you if it is ever a precursor.

I have moderate tinnitus in my left ear and also some hearing loss. Tinnitus can be pretty obnoxious, it's one of those weird things that if you concentrate on it, it gets worse.

I'm hopeful for some sort of procedure or drug to someday alleviate it, but for now I just live with it.

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

#47

Post by hexagonc » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

teeray wrote: post #34

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?

I think maybe the same rule of thumb applies to tinnitus; if it starts suddenly without warning and persists then get it checked out. Otherwise, it may be normal. I've had mild tinnitus for years but it never occurs during the day unless I've been listening to very loud music and only rarely happens for a few seconds right before falling asleep. Fortunately, my symptoms also haven't gotten perceptibly worse for the last few years.

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

#48

Post by jareds » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

chewxy wrote: post #42

jareds wrote: post #22

As a totally blind software developer everything he has in the article is accurate. There are two things he did not do though which I do on a regular basis and assume most other blind users do as well. First is using the feature of screen readers that allow you to view all links on a page as one giant list. While this isn’t helpful when initially browsing a page if you use a site on a regular basis and know where you…

I don't mean to be insensitive, but I am morbidly curious about your condition (mainly because 23andme said I am prone to macular degeneration, a thought that terrifies me). How does one program without sight? I have done something similar to OP on my latest project (I tried to use my product blindfolded + screenreader), and I found that it was a terrible experience. My site was absolute shite. It was only through my…

I was born blind so have never known any different and have always done everything on the computer with speech and brail. From talking to people who have lost their vision later in life it generally seems the older you are when you lose your vision the harder it is to adapt and live a normal life after vision loss. Since you know it may be a possibility though I assume may have some time to at least cope with the fact that you could lose your vision and have a longer time to acclimate yourself to this fact rather than losing it all in a hunting accident. If you have a MAC play with voiceover which is built into the OS, it has a nice getting started tutorial. As for how I program see the following stackoverflow question. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/118984/how-can-you-progra...

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

#49

Post by sethg » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

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…

“I’ve been seeing spots in front of my eyes.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“No, just spots.”

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

#50

Post by DigitalJack » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 4:29 PM UTC

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 ;)

Something I have noticed on HN lately is our (and I do me our) tendency to search for purely technological solutions and completely ignore the possibility of manual labor.

Wikipedia would not be possible without manual labor, as an example. We should not discount manual labor and the fact that humans are so versatile at dealing with ill-defined input.

Surely a "service" does not need to be a purely technological and automatic service.

I can imagine a portal, like google, that instead of storing vanilla cached pages, stores "vision impaired friendly" pages for viewing. I can further imagine that with the right tools developed, crowd sourcing could make this successful.

If one were to develop tools for slicing and cleansing or dynamically transforming pages such that these tools were friendly to blind and otherwise vision impaired users, you would have built in motivation among the crowd to participate.