[bcab] Re: Residual vision was Accessibility considerations

"if people have got even a little bit of sight, why don't they make the most of 
what they've got instead of giving the impression that they've got no sight at 
all?"

I don't know if this is quite accurate.  Most if not all visually impaired 
however much vision they have use it as much as they can.  However, the world, 
general public etc. do not often have time for an accurate perception of visual 
impairement unless they experience it for themselves.  It is both simpler and 
more comfortable for most general public to assume if you have a cane or a dog 
you have no useful vision.  Consenquently if you have neither you are not 
visually impaired.  If, as I have, narrowly avoiding fast moving pavement 
cyclists, they think you are thick or swear at you because you haven't spotted 
them thirty yards off, I suspect if there was a cane or a dog this would not 
occur. Therefore I suspect for most visually impaired people it is simpler to 
accept offered help or explain they have no sight than go into chapter and 
verse about their eye condition.  As for partial sight I think neither sighted 
or totally blind understand where you are coming from.

As for developers of software or technical aids I would also dissagree, Jaws is 
not aimed at those who are sighted, you are not expected to have any vision for 
Jaws.  Indeed Jaws far too much info for anyone with any useful vision.  
Packages like Zoomtext and Magic with speech are targeted specifically at those 
groups and Dolphin Supernova is practically a one stop shop for everything if 
you want it, Dolphin make a very good living doing that.  Historically 
magnification packages always went ahead of speech applications, there was a 
Lunar for Windows even before any speech acess to Windows.  Those with some 
useful vision are even catered for in a basic way in Windows with enlarged 
schemes that for some may even preclude use of access technology.

Where there is a difficult crossover is where people want screen reader speech 
and are hanging onto very little vision via magnification.  I have come accross 
people using screens with much less than a full word visibile on the screen 
struggling even for some minutes to read that one word, this is just not 
efficient even if their sight holds up for the duration.  There is also a 
difficulty in negotiating two different worlds of speech and magnification.  
They are very different and I think in some extreme cases cause confusion 
rather than being a compliment.

Because of the very real emotional, practical and cultural significance of 
sight loss in particular, and sight impairement in general, it is difficult to 
educate those who do not experience this as much as those who are visually 
impaired people would like.  In the end you can only provide an incomplete or 
at best generalised picture.  Western culture from what I can percieve is 
actually moving into ever more complex and nuanced visual modes of 
communication rather than meeting with an experience that visually impaired 
people would understand probably because it affords faster communication.   The 
apparant popularity of the Microsoft Office 2007 ribbon technology may be seen 
as an example of that

Regards.

Tristram Llewellyn
Sight and Sound Technology
Technical Support
www.sightandsound.co.uk

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