Gee, Sarah, I hope you don't teach older
blind people and/or beginners. Much too demanding for
a beginner to expect that. Let's blind fold the
sighted folks and tell them to do just keyboard stuff,
no clicks. There isn't a one size fits all, and often
people who have mastered a lot think everybody else
should do the same to the same extent, or they're not
worth messing with. I've seen that with blind
supertechies, self-styled, and it is disgusting.
Off tipic, maybe. But I'm just responding
to what I dfeel is an absurd approach.
Oh no. I tell a blind person click this
and click that, and if they cannot follow my
directions, then it's not my problem. they need to
learn how to translate that into what ever that
means for them. If they fail to do so, they will be
left behind, and I cannot do anything about that.
--
Sarah Alawami, owner of TFFP. . For more
info go to our website. http://www.tffppodcast.com
Check out my adventures with a shadow
machine. http://tffppodcast.com/shadow
to subscribe to the feed click here http://feeds.feedburner.com/tffp
and you can also follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/tffppodcast
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Feel free to give the channel a follow and see what
is up there.
For stream archives, products you can
buy and more visit my main lbry page http://lbry.tv/@ke7zum
and my tffp lbry page http://lbry.tv/@tffp
You will also be able to buy some of my products and
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Finally, to become a patron and help
support the podcast go here Http://patreon.com/tffppodcast
On 30 Dec 2020, at 16:08, Brian Vogel
wrote:
On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 02:32 PM,
Arlene wrote:
You’d be a good advocate for
blind users who have to fight
with isp providers. You know how they say
click here or
there. They have no clue that you are a
blind user. I’ve
encountered someone who had no clue that I
don’t see.
-
Now, Arlene, I'll probably end up causing you
some offense while
at the same time praising you and trashing the
clueless sighted, too.
I have been a good advocate on many
occasions for multiple
issues. But, at the same time, there are "click
here and click
there" instructions that should be simple to
follow, while there
are others that are impossible to follow. There
are plenty of
sighted individuals (like I have to say this
here), and
particularly techs, who have probably never
dealt with an
individual who is blind let alone with a screen
reader. If you
ask most of your sighted friends and
acquaintances who've never
been around someone who's blind when they're
using a computer how
they think that would work, they generally can't
answer. I could
not have answered this during my many years in
the computer biz,
and that was, I would say, for the majority of
my many years in
the computer biz. The whole concept of something
so visually
driven in the most common user interface is
almost impossible to
conceive of via other modalities. Those of us
who see "swim in
sight" like it's water and we're Esther Williams
and, for obvious
reasons, that's a taken for granted thing. Just
like those of us
who can hear do the same for audition. You just
don't think about
sensory modalities you lack, or how those would
be substituted,
when you have no real reason to in daily
existence.
I honestly think it sometimes just
doesn't register with some
techs when you identify yourself as blind
(which, I will add, is
absolutely your responsibility when engaging
technical support -
they can't read minds) and for many where it
does, what they are
doing and saying is out of force of habit rather
than malice or
stupidity. It's probably ignorance more than
anything. But
sometimes you have to guide them, and teach them
something, when
they're trying to guide you in a way that can't
work. Were
someone to say, "Click on the gear icon,"
responding with, "I
can't see that, but do you mean you want me to
open settings?," is
going to get both sides of the equation
something they need. You
get clarity (or hopefully you do) and the tech
gets clued in,
however subtly and possibly temporarily, that
there is a way to
reference things that is not purely visual.
They'll usually keep
screwing up out of force of habit during any
given session, but if
you keep instructing them about what you need,
they'll often be
willing to rephrase. For certain things, it's
worth trying to get
the point across that giving reference points,
is something worth
doing. A response like, "Click on the red
button at the upper
left is meaningless for me, but is there another
button or link
very near to it? If I can find that, I can
likely find what's
next to it." There really are not, and never
will be, enough
technicians out there versed in screen readers
and blindness to
provide support for every product that exists,
particularly for
smaller companies. But many techs really want
to help, they just
have no idea of exactly how, and you can serve
to teach them how
to an extent while getting the help you need.
All of the above being said, make no
mistake, I know all too well
that you will get plenty of clueless and hostile
(or at least very
passive and unwilling to work with you) techs.
But there are lots
of folks who will quickly recognize that you are
not clueless
about what you need, and that they, while they
may be clueless
about how you get to it, can still find a way to
meet you in the
middle where you can both get what you want.
I worked for many years in brain
injury services, and I used to
tell my patients/clients who were brain injured
and trying to make
their way back into "the world at large" that
they would
constantly, endlessly, have to be their own best
advocates and to
educate the clueless. It's not a choice,
because that's another
population that's such a tiny niche in humanity
at large that
there will never come a time when most people
they meet and
interact with will have any idea about what it
is to be brain
injured or what a brain injured individual might
need. The thing
that someone who's had a brain injury has going
against them that
most blind people will not is the presumption
that they are
incapable of understanding a very great many
things that they
can. And one of the most difficult
self-advocation skills I used
to teach is temper control when the clueless
deserve a shovel
upside the head for how obnoxious they're being
and keeping
composure so that you can clearly communicate
what you need and
what you're capable of.
Almost anyone with almost any
disability is saddled with the added
responsibility of having to be advocate and
teacher as a part of
their daily life where the majority do not. But
I do not ever see
any way that will change. It's the result of
relative sizes of
given demographics in the population at large.
When you're a
niche, you're a niche. Rebelling against the
larger world because
you have that added burden does not do any
damage to the larger
world. In fact, by and large, they couldn't
care less because in
most instances they don't have to. But that
doesn't mean that
those same people are malicious or stupid, just
ignorant, and many
really would love to help if they are taught how
that's
appropriately given. And, believe me, the last
thing you want is
to have them guess, because those guesses will
be wrong 99.999% of
the time.
--
Brian -Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2,
Build 19042
[Regarding the Supreme Court
refusing to hear the case brought by
Texas to overturn the votes certified by 4
states:] /Pleased with
the SCOTUS ruling, but also immediately slightly
terrified of
where this crazy train goes next. We should
know by now there’s a
bottomless supply of crazy./
~ Brendan Buck, /former
adviser to Speakers of the House
Paul Ryan and John Boehner/
