Are there frameworks to automatically analyse html for accessibility and perhaps provide a certain rating based on set guidelines? I think that might be a very interesting project to work on if such a thing does not exist.
How a Blind Person Programs
61–70 of 136 posts
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#62Wow! Those screen readers are fast (his example https://soundcloud.com/freecodecamp )! I barely understood a word. I didn't know that. It's a shame that so many programs don't follow the accessibility guidelines, but it's just too damn easy to forget about the disabled if you aren't. But this article was an eye-opener for me (no pun intended).
Since he has a whole occipital lobe to devote to parsing that, I don't feel so bad that my auditory processing isn't quite up to snuff. Reminds me of speed reading, though. What is the wpm on that? Maybe I'll ask him on freenode.
He informed me the clip is 525WPM. Impressive!
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#63>Fortunately, some fellow campers at the Free Code Camp were sympathetic towards my plight and volunteered to transcribe all these slides for me. This offer left me 'flabbergasted', as our dear western neighbors across the sea would say.
Many ions ago, I volunteered for an organization called "Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic" (now known as Learning Ally - http://www.learningally.org/). Groups of individuals (mostly retired professors and other students) would record textbooks for college students. It was all volunteer and donation based. It would typically take days to weeks from starting a book until the recording was ready.
I loved almost all of it. The one thing I didn't like was that we would read a book in shifts and you wouldn't always be working on the same book from shift to shift, so you might read scene three of a play one shift, then the next day read chapter seven of a calculus 2 textbook. Regardless, it was always interesting and we always knew that there were students benefiting from our effort. As an extremely nearsighted child, one of my fears growing up was that I would grow to be so nearsighted I would be functionally blind, so it was a little personal for me.
Since then, I've been in charge of 508 conformance on many different websights [1]. I have always appreciated the sensory-challenged sharing how they are, or are not, able to use websites. I never cease to be amazed at the human ability to adapt and overcome such challenges!
[1] Freudian slip that I noticed but decided was worth sharing ;-)
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#64Wow! Those screen readers are fast (his example https://soundcloud.com/freecodecamp )! I barely understood a word. I didn't know that. It's a shame that so many programs don't follow the accessibility guidelines, but it's just too damn easy to forget about the disabled if you aren't. But this article was an eye-opener for me (no pun intended).
Since he has a whole occipital lobe to devote to parsing that, I don't feel so bad that my auditory processing isn't quite up to snuff. Reminds me of speed reading, though. What is the wpm on that? Maybe I'll ask him on freenode.
Is there evidence to suggest that a brain is that plastic? Genuinely curious. I feel like the "blind people have super-powered other senses" is an urban legend, like the 10% of your brain misconception.
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#65Wow! Those screen readers are fast (his example https://soundcloud.com/freecodecamp )! I barely understood a word. I didn't know that. It's a shame that so many programs don't follow the accessibility guidelines, but it's just too damn easy to forget about the disabled if you aren't. But this article was an eye-opener for me (no pun intended).
SoundCloud is evil and started playing bad songs right after this audio stopped.
Yeah, shocking after turning up the volume a bunch to hear the screenreader.
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#66That blog post is very interesting. I really enjoyed the reading and must admit that I should spend more time on accessibility. The speed of the screen reader Zersiax uses is unbelievable fast. I can't understand a single word: https://soundcloud.com/freecodecamp/zersiaxs-screen-reader
Wow! Just, wow! I had skipped hearing the screen reader on my first pass on the article. It is amazing how human audition can parse that speech rate. If that rate were the norm, I'd be classified as hearing impaired. I can't identify a single word.
Not hearing impaired, just mentally disabled. :)
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#67I'd like to know: what is the most comfortable posture for coding once you no longer have to look at a screen? I've wondered whether a syntax-sparse language like iolanguage might allow you to code entirely by voice and ear, with no need for keyboard. For those of us with vision, imagine having a lounge with a large screen on the wall. You can talk into your headset as you pace around, or lie on the couch.
Technically I can already sort of do that in any language. Do keep in mind that all I need to interact with a computer is a keyboard and some way to hear audio ...so I can in fact lay back on the couch with a keyboard on my lap and code away. In fact ... I do that all the time ;) I can't check my work using braille that way though, which is kind of essential with very complex code
@zersiax
- Thank you so much for sharing!
- You mention,
>Premier tools that coders use every day, like the IntelliJ editor, as well as all its offshoots (PHPStorm, WebStorm, PyCharm), are completely inaccessible, due simply to the fact that the developers of these programs have not adhered to the accessibility guidelines. They've failed to give screen readers textual labels or accessibility descriptions to work with. The same goes for applications like SourceTree, which is slowly getting better, but is still a pain to use.
Have you tried VIM, eMacs, Sublime or Brackets; if so, how would you rate them?
What is your experience with HN's interface? I know I frequently wish there were more visual indicators of new/unread responses, but I can at least scan the beginning of messages and skip ones that I've previously read; do you have a corresponding way to skip responses?
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#68I actually had an idea for this. What if blind users could wear little braille terminals? Like, braile is constructed of a series of dots, so why not have like a bracer that has a array of dots that poke the skin?
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically I can already sort of do that in any language. Do keep in mind that all I need to interact with a computer is a keyboard and some way to hear audio ...so I can in fact lay back on the couch with a keyboard on my lap and code away. In fact ... I do that all the time ;) I can't check my work using braille that way though, which is kind of essential with very complex code
@zersiax - Thank you so much for sharing! - You mention, >Premier tools that coders use every day, like the IntelliJ editor, as well as all its offshoots (PHPStorm, WebStorm, PyCharm), are completely inaccessible, due simply to the fact that the developers of these programs have not adhered to the accessibility guidelines. They've failed to give screen readers textual labels or accessibility descriptions to work with…
I'm not the original author, but a blind coder nonetheless, so i think it's worth responding anyway. Sublime is an accessibility disaster, unfortunately, Emacs can be used, but it's much more productive with EmacsSpeak or Speechd-el. Vim would likely need something similar, because the advanced cursor movement commands have no screen reader feedback by default.
The HN ui is quite okay, but some semantic comment nesting (like disqus comments, perhaps?) would help. Might be some filtering for new comments since last visit.
Re: How a Blind Person Programs
#70I'd like to know: what is the most comfortable posture for coding once you no longer have to look at a screen? I've wondered whether a syntax-sparse language like iolanguage might allow you to code entirely by voice and ear, with no need for keyboard. For those of us with vision, imagine having a lounge with a large screen on the wall. You can talk into your headset as you pace around, or lie on the couch.
Technically I can already sort of do that in any language. Do keep in mind that all I need to interact with a computer is a keyboard and some way to hear audio ...so I can in fact lay back on the couch with a keyboard on my lap and code away. In fact ... I do that all the time ;) I can't check my work using braille that way though, which is kind of essential with very complex code
Btw. what braille do you use for reading code? 8-dot us-computer braille, or something else?
(I'm the author of MBraille, now working on Vietnamese braille table for liblouis, so braille is in my mind...)