Hello job seeker, recruiter and job holder,
When you face any job interview, how do you explain screen reader and
accessibility to sighted people?

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 04:12 AM, Brian's Mail list account wrote:

Oh, is this still a thing.

-
Of it's "still a thing."  There are many people who do not know, personally, a single blind person, let alone know the technologies that they might use.  You're a tiny minority and could very well be the first person the "explainee" has ever encountered that uses a screen reader.  That is a novelty, and in the context of employment (and you could be the first blind employee) a reasonable accommodation.

The explanation to a sighted person can be very brief:  The screen reader allows me to use the computer in the same way you do, but by ear rather than by eye.

More can be offered if curiosity is shown, but you're not trying to give a training class in screen reader use, you're just trying to give a "quick and comprehensible" explanation of how that technology fits into your world.

I do not know how you can say, "we are or should be so far into the online digital world, that these adaptations should be commonplace."  There just aren't that many of you to begin with, relative to the population as a whole.  No one is going to spend money on adaptations that are not needed by their current employees when those adaptations are expensive, no matter what those happen to be.

When it comes to adaptations that focus on a single employee or a very, very small cadre of employees, it's always going to be a "case by case" basis because that's the only thing that makes sense.  I worked in state agencies that specialized in disability services, where accommodations of all sorts were common, but they were obtained for employee X or Y when they were on-boarded, and most often because that individual could (and did) clearly understand what they needed to do the job and communicated that.

There is never coming a time where niche needs are going to be consistently and always available when the actual instance of an actual instance of that need is very seldom occurring.  It's not cost effective, nor is it useful - to anyone - when assistive tech is just lying about gathering dust and no one even knows what it's about or why it's there.

Self-advocacy is something you are saddled with whether you like it or not.  Get good at it.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

Yeah, it’s sort of funny when I thinka bout it, but the amount of surprise and bemusement when I explain to someone about a screen-reader is still about the same as it was in the early 90s. Maybe ther’es a somewhat increased likelihood that someone might have a basic understanding of such things, but it is a tiny increase, if anything. Suppose it also depends on where you are in the world, too. But it’s definitely an extreme novelty to most people and utterly incomprehensible, sometimes even after you attempt to explain it, unless they see it in action.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 04:12 AM, Brian's Mail list account wrote:

Oh, is this still a thing.

-
Of it's "still a thing."  There are many people who do not know, personally, a single blind person, let alone know the technologies that they might use.  You're a tiny minority and could very well be the first person the "explainee" has ever encountered that uses a screen reader.  That is a novelty, and in the context of employment (and you could be the first blind employee) a reasonable accommodation.

The explanation to a sighted person can be very brief:  The screen reader allows me to use the computer in the same way you do, but by ear rather than by eye.

More can be offered if curiosity is shown, but you're not trying to give a training class in screen reader use, you're just trying to give a "quick and comprehensible" explanation of how that technology fits into your world.

I do not know how you can say, "we are or should be so far into the online digital world, that these adaptations should be commonplace."  There just aren't that many of you to begin with, relative to the population as a whole.  No one is going to spend money on adaptations that are not needed by their current employees when those adaptations are expensive, no matter what those happen to be.

When it comes to adaptations that focus on a single employee or a very, very small cadre of employees, it's always going to be a "case by case" basis because that's the only thing that makes sense.  I worked in state agencies that specialized in disability services, where accommodations of all sorts were common, but they were obtained for employee X or Y when they were on-boarded, and most often because that individual could (and did) clearly understand what they needed to do the job and communicated that.

There is never coming a time where niche needs are going to be consistently and always available when the actual instance of an actual instance of that need is very seldom occurring.  It's not cost effective, nor is it useful - to anyone - when assistive tech is just lying about gathering dust and no one even knows what it's about or why it's there.

Self-advocacy is something you are saddled with whether you like it or not.  Get good at it.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:11 AM, JM Casey wrote:

But it’s definitely an extreme novelty to most people and utterly incomprehensible, sometimes even after you attempt to explain it, unless they see it in action.

-
Which, really, is not surprising either.  Try to explain a word processor, in detail, to someone who's never seen or used one. 

For any complex piece of software, and screen readers are very complex, if you attempt to give anything but a very brief description of purpose, things get into the weeds very quickly.  In most cases the person asking really doesn't care about the mechanics of using it, either, just what it's about in the big picture.

Seeing someone using it in action definitely helps, but even then, they're often left slack-jawed (I know I was) because what is being done in the auditory modality, and without visuals, is just completely divorced from the visual modality the observer relies on.  It's not that we don't understand what's happening, but we have no idea how you can do it.  The first time I encountered a screen reader user that had their voice rate set at "auctioneer on coke" speed I had no idea in hell what was happening.  I still don't, at the specific level, but I now understand that you can train yourself to comprehend language at speeds well above typical conversational (even fast conversational) rates if it serves your purposes.  I'll never be able to understand speech at that rate, but I don't have to.  But that does come around to if you are someone who uses speech at that rate, and are doing a screen reader demo for the sighted, you might want to slow the speech down at some point during the demo so that those observing can understand that speech, even if it's just for a couple of moments, then shift it into your own preferred hyperspeed again.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

JM,

I agree with you about the "shocker" part of many sighted individual's initial (or even sometimes beyond that, well beyond, if the contact is infrequent) encounter with someone who's blind.  You're also directly supporting my central tenet, that there are so very few of you, relative to the population at large, that a very large percentage of sighted people will never have had any encounter with a blind person, or even if they have, it will be so brief and insubstantial as to be meaningless as far as having the slightest clue about what it is to live with blindness.  And, just based on numbers, that should be expected on the part of individuals who are blind, because the numbers game actually dictates it.  The same is also true for the deaf.  When you are a part of a very tiny minority of humanity as a whole, expecting humanity as a whole to know anything about your demographic, in any depth, is unreasonable.  You learn things about people you interact with, and interact with routinely, and most sighted people have never and will never interact with someone who's blind routinely.

Many members on a number of the blind-centric groups on which I participate have said that I "expect too much" of individuals who are blind.  Much of that "curse" on my end, if you even consider it that, was that the one blind person who I interacted with for a period of over a decade was my mother's age (she died in 2021 at the age of 84) and had been blind since birth.  She came up in the era where the blind were relegated entirely to the corner, and where accessibility was not even a twinkling in some bright person's eye, but that never stopped her from doing anything she set her mind to that did not directly require vision.  She was an early adopter of every accessibility software as it appeared on the machines, working with the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired (DBVI) to get it, and was for many years also a part of their technology tutor network while her husband was still alive and could drive her to her appointments.  This was not someone who had formal technology training in the conventional sense, either.  But she was my model of what any blind individual (in general, we all know that exceptions to all generalities exist) can and should be.  I also worked with a number of blind professionals at what was then Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center and at DBVI, all of whom had the reasonable accommodations, but in all other respects functioned exactly as their sighted counterparts did in those same jobs, and that was the expectation.

I try, sincerely, to treat blind individuals in exactly the same way I treat sighted ones, and I tend to set bars high rather than ever succumbing to the tyrrany of low expectations.  And I'm willing to do the work necessary to pull people toward that high bar rather than writing it off as not possible, because for most I know damned well it is possible, along with being able to recognize the instances where it is probably not.  But I go in to every interaction with someone I meet, whether in person or on these lists, who I know to be blind having the same expectations, and making the same demands, I would on anyone who wasn't.  And I'm proud of that fact, whether certain others find that approach too stringent or not.  You either want to be treated equally, or you don't.  I take the approach of going for equal treatment until and unless some clear indicator that some other reasonable accommodation is needed or is asked for.  And if someone needs something from the outset that I, or anyone else, could not possibly know about that should be asked for, plainly.  Ferreting it out should not be required.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

Gene,

I'm not doing the next go-round on this.  Believe what you might.  I have been entirely clear.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

Yeah, it’s sort of funny when I thinka bout it, but the amount of surprise
and bemusement when I explain to someone about a screen-reader is still
about the same as it was in the early 90s. Maybe ther’es a somewhat
increased likelihood that someone might have a basic understanding of such
things, but it is a tiny increase, if anything. Suppose it also depends on
where you are in the world, too. But it’s definitely an extreme novelty to
most people and utterly incomprehensible, sometimes even after you attempt
to explain it, unless they see it in action.





*From:* chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> *On Behalf Of *Brian
Vogel
*Sent:* January 31, 2023 10:49 AM
*To:* chat@nvda.groups.io
*Subject:* Re: [chat] explaining screen reader to sighted people



On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 04:12 AM, Brian's Mail list account wrote:

Oh, is this still a thing.

-
Of it's "still a thing." There are many people who do not know,
personally, a single blind person, let alone know the technologies that
they might use. You're a tiny minority and could very well be the first
person the "explainee" has ever encountered that uses a screen reader.
That is a novelty, and in the context of employment (and you could be the
first blind employee) a reasonable accommodation.

The explanation to a sighted person can be very brief: The screen reader
allows me to use the computer in the same way you do, but by ear rather
than by eye.

More can be offered if curiosity is shown, but you're not trying to give a
training class in screen reader use, you're just trying to give a "quick
and comprehensible" explanation of how that technology fits into your world.

I do not know how you can say, "we are or should be so far into the online
digital world, that these adaptations should be commonplace." There just
aren't that many of you to begin with, relative to the population as a
whole. No one is going to spend money on adaptations that are not needed
by their current employees when those adaptations are expensive, no matter
what those happen to be.

When it comes to adaptations that focus on a single employee or a very,
very small cadre of employees, it's always going to be a "case by case"
basis because that's the only thing that makes sense. I worked in state
agencies that specialized in disability services, where accommodations of
all sorts were common, but they were obtained for employee X or Y when they
were on-boarded, and most often because that individual could (and did)
clearly understand what they needed to do the job and communicated that.

There is never coming a time where niche needs are going to be
consistently and always available when the actual instance of an actual
instance of that need is very seldom occurring. It's not cost effective,
nor is it useful - to anyone - when assistive tech is just lying about
gathering dust and no one even knows what it's about or why it's there.

Self-advocacy is something you are saddled with whether you like it or
not. Get good at it.
--

Brian *- *Virginia, USA *- *Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build
22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith
than love. Even atheists believe in atheism. The modern era has simply
replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of
Constantinople (1997)

Yeah, it’s sort of funny when I thinka bout it, but the amount of surprise and bemusement when I explain to someone about a screen-reader is still about the same as it was in the early 90s. Maybe ther’es a somewhat increased likelihood that someone might have a basic understanding of such things, but it is a tiny increase, if anything. Suppose it also depends on where you are in the world, too. But it’s definitely an extreme novelty to most people and utterly incomprehensible, sometimes even after you attempt to explain it, unless they see it in action.

 

 

From: chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: January 31, 2023 10:49 AM
To: chat@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [chat] explaining screen reader to sighted people

 

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 04:12 AM, Brian's Mail list account wrote:

Oh, is this still a thing.

-
Of it's "still a thing."  There are many people who do not know, personally, a single blind person, let alone know the technologies that they might use.  You're a tiny minority and could very well be the first person the "explainee" has ever encountered that uses a screen reader.  That is a novelty, and in the context of employment (and you could be the first blind employee) a reasonable accommodation.

The explanation to a sighted person can be very brief:  The screen reader allows me to use the computer in the same way you do, but by ear rather than by eye.

More can be offered if curiosity is shown, but you're not trying to give a training class in screen reader use, you're just trying to give a "quick and comprehensible" explanation of how that technology fits into your world.

I do not know how you can say, "we are or should be so far into the online digital world, that these adaptations should be commonplace."  There just aren't that many of you to begin with, relative to the population as a whole.  No one is going to spend money on adaptations that are not needed by their current employees when those adaptations are expensive, no matter what those happen to be.

When it comes to adaptations that focus on a single employee or a very, very small cadre of employees, it's always going to be a "case by case" basis because that's the only thing that makes sense.  I worked in state agencies that specialized in disability services, where accommodations of all sorts were common, but they were obtained for employee X or Y when they were on-boarded, and most often because that individual could (and did) clearly understand what they needed to do the job and communicated that.

There is never coming a time where niche needs are going to be consistently and always available when the actual instance of an actual instance of that need is very seldom occurring.  It's not cost effective, nor is it useful - to anyone - when assistive tech is just lying about gathering dust and no one even knows what it's about or why it's there.

Self-advocacy is something you are saddled with whether you like it or not.  Get good at it.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)

Thank you. Recently, I faced two interviews. Their expression was like I am the first blind person that they have ever met. I tried to explain both orally and demonstrate what a screen reader is and how blind people use computers. However,  none of them worked.

They concluded that I will need more time to perform any task than a sighted person. So, they are not interested in moving forward.

Wel, I live in Bangladesh. I am planning to create a video where I will demonstrate how a blind person uses a computer and post it to social media such as linkedin.

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 10:11 PM JM Casey <jmcasey@...> wrote:

Yeah, it’s sort of funny when I thinka bout it, but the amount of surprise and bemusement when I explain to someone about a screen-reader is still about the same as it was in the early 90s. Maybe ther’es a somewhat increased likelihood that someone might have a basic understanding of such things, but it is a tiny increase, if anything. Suppose it also depends on where you are in the world, too. But it’s definitely an extreme novelty to most people and utterly incomprehensible, sometimes even after you attempt to explain it, unless they see it in action.

 

 

From: chat@nvda.groups.io <chat@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: January 31, 2023 10:49 AM
To: chat@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [chat] explaining screen reader to sighted people

 

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 04:12 AM, Brian's Mail list account wrote:

Oh, is this still a thing.

-
Of it's "still a thing."  There are many people who do not know, personally, a single blind person, let alone know the technologies that they might use.  You're a tiny minority and could very well be the first person the "explainee" has ever encountered that uses a screen reader.  That is a novelty, and in the context of employment (and you could be the first blind employee) a reasonable accommodation.

The explanation to a sighted person can be very brief:  The screen reader allows me to use the computer in the same way you do, but by ear rather than by eye.

More can be offered if curiosity is shown, but you're not trying to give a training class in screen reader use, you're just trying to give a "quick and comprehensible" explanation of how that technology fits into your world.

I do not know how you can say, "we are or should be so far into the online digital world, that these adaptations should be commonplace."  There just aren't that many of you to begin with, relative to the population as a whole.  No one is going to spend money on adaptations that are not needed by their current employees when those adaptations are expensive, no matter what those happen to be.

When it comes to adaptations that focus on a single employee or a very, very small cadre of employees, it's always going to be a "case by case" basis because that's the only thing that makes sense.  I worked in state agencies that specialized in disability services, where accommodations of all sorts were common, but they were obtained for employee X or Y when they were on-boarded, and most often because that individual could (and did) clearly understand what they needed to do the job and communicated that.

There is never coming a time where niche needs are going to be consistently and always available when the actual instance of an actual instance of that need is very seldom occurring.  It's not cost effective, nor is it useful - to anyone - when assistive tech is just lying about gathering dust and no one even knows what it's about or why it's there.

Self-advocacy is something you are saddled with whether you like it or not.  Get good at it.
--

Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)

The modern era has not eliminated faith--you could no more eliminate faith than love.  Even atheists believe in atheism.  The modern era has simply replaced spiritual faith in God with secular faith in man.

         ~ Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople (1997)