Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash

But just being a web designer was not my only point.  I know that your 
knowledge extends beyond just html code.  What I meant was have you possibly 
considered creating a game, then creating a website to promote this game.  Or 
an application that may be in demand or may need to be made.  Have you maybe 
considered teaching?  Of course making the game or application is only half of 
the battle, because then you have to promote it.  Here is another example of a 
simple idea that has seemed to have taken off because of a simple marketing 
strategy change.  Text Aloud., when I first found them was just a simple 
website with the only program on it being text aloud.  I downloaded the program 
thinking it would help me out since the only screen reader I had was Narrator.  
When I found out that I could copy the text from a web page and it would read 
it to me automatically, I decided to email David.  What I told him is I didn't 
think he understood the potential of what he had.  I told him that I was a 
blind computer user and that it helped me to get around the net but it needed a 
little work.  It at the time did not work very well with screen readers.  He 
responded to me saying that he was actually starting beta testing on a new 
version and if I would be interested in helping make it more accessible.  I of 
course joined the beta team along with one other blind person.  We helped to 
explain to him what the program needed and some things he put in and some he 
didn't but I have to say the end result is alot more accessible than what he 
started with.  Well it wasn't long after 2.0 was released that he caught the 
attention of a company called ZD net.  He got his program promoted and reviewed 
on a show they had called call for help and he kind of took off from there.  
But all he really did was did a little change in his marketing strategy.  Soon 
there wasn't a search on google that I could do having to do with the blind 
where an ad for text aloud wouldn't come up.  Today he has a few more products 
up there but he also has a bit of software up there again for people that have 
lost their ability to speak.  When last I checked he sold the product for 99 
dollars US.  That is about 2000 dollars cheaper than similar products that 
perform the same function.  Now I sit and I think sometimes, did my email 
change his mind about what he had?  I believe it did.  Of course I have since 
been able to purchase a copy or two of jaws and find myself using it less than 
before.  But I do still keep it around for reading pdf files etc.  And I do 
still keep it around because I do get the product for free for the help I gave 
him.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Octavian Rasnita 
  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 11:04 AM
  Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


  Yes I agree with you, I also didn't like those complex web pages hard to use 
even when I was sighted.
  But this has nothing to do with the requirements for the web designers.

  Most of the web users I know know that the web browser has a scroll bar and 
that a web page can be longer than the screen, but they usually forget that, 
and if they cannot see everything on the first page, they tell that "that link 
doesn't exist", so the blind designer must make the pages to fit on one screen 
even if they need to show more links or pictures.

  The users I'm talking about use to like the menus created with Javascript 
"because they are easier to use", and they also like to push "nice buttons" 
instead of clicking on links, even though in fact those nice buttons are simple 
links with images that change themselves when they hover the mouse above them.
  But they don't know that, and they are confused if you tell them that those 
are links and not buttons.

  And the blind designer might be also confused, because the screen reader tell 
him that those are "links" and he cannot see what contain those images.

  We are talking about web design companies, about companies that create very 
many pages one after another, for other clients, which are usually smaller 
companies that don't have an iT department, and most of those clients don't 
have an idea about what a good site means.

  And I also know that some web design companies are good and they give good 
advices about how a good web page should be, but most of those clients don't 
agree and like flashy pages, because "they are more dynamic". Most of those 
clients don't know or care about the persons with disabilities or about their 
needs, and they ask for that kind of pages we don't like. And the interest of 
those web design companies is to serve their clients, not to follow W3C's 
recommendations or to care about the blind persons.

  In these conditions, a blind web designer might be asked for many times to 
create web pages that are inaccessible for the blind, and of course that a 
blind web designer won't be able to do a good job in those cases.

  A very important bank from my city changed its web site which was very 
accessible a few weeks ago, and now it uses only Flash.
  They didn't do it themselves, but a web design company. Now I can't read 
absolutely anything on their web site. Of course they don't care about the 
blind, and of course they won't improve their site just because a few blind 
persons will ask them.
  And there are other cases like that. I don't think a blind web designer could 
work for such a web design company.
  Those companies are usually pretty small because the market for web sites is 
not extraordinary big and there are more web design companies, and I doubt a 
blind web designer can find a job. Maybe only by chance...


  Octavian

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: John Greer 
    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 5:47 PM
    Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


    So, I have to ask, have you tried creating your own business concerning web 
design?  What I mean is you could start your own business with a few friends 
and market your services through web advertising.  Much of your advertising 
could also be for free if you search around.  For example you can submit your 
website to search engines, advertise through link and banner exchanges etc.  
Web pages do not have to be complex or riddled with pictures to catch a sighted 
person's attention.  In fact many of the web pages out there are very over 
done.  pogo.com is the first example that comes to mind.  E bay is another.  
Now while they have all of the flashy graphics etc. etc., to the sighted they 
are cluttered and disorganized.  It does not require that you use every web 
technology at your disposal to create a useful website.  Take a quick glance at 
the source for google.com.  The layout visually for google is a page with the 
google logo, a few links, an edit box and a couple of buttons.  And you know, 
those guys that own that site are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  So 
what I say is instead of having your ideas and hoping for an employer to hire 
you, why not take those ideas and create a business of your own with it.  
Sometimes all it really takes is a simple but unique idea.  Ask the guy that 
invented the pet rock how much he made from a rock glued to a board with a 
paper that said if it is wet it is raining.
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Octavian Rasnita 
      To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
      Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 7:21 AM
      Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


      Yes but we had this discussion before and I shown that the design of that 
site has not a commercial quality.
      Helpful for the blind and maybe other persons, but not appropriate for 
promoting a real business.

      Yes there are companies specialized for web design that have many 
employees and some of them could do just a part of the work while others could 
specialize in other fields, however there are very few such companies in some 
countries, so the possible oportunities of getting a job in one of them by a 
blind are very few.

      On the other hand, I've seen that those companies requires much more from 
a perspective employee, from knowing PHP, Javascript, knowing a foreign 
language like english or french, doing graphics in a certain program like 
Photoshop or Photopaint, considering Flash knowledge as an advantage, and other 
things.

      Well, in that case a blind web designer has almost 0 chances of getting a 
job, because not only that he cannot do all the things, but he cannot do the 
things considered an advantage either.

      I haven't seen any job announcement that asks for knowing the World Wide 
Web Consortium recommendations, and knowing HTML is something very normal.


      Octavian

        ----- Original Message ----- 
        From: John Greer 
        To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
        Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:55 AM
        Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


        I think what is happening here is people here are lumping web designer 
together as a single profession.  When you are working for a company, there is 
usually a web design department.  But, that web design department consists of 
many other positions, graphics design, lay out design, concept design, data 
entry, coding etc. etc.  When working for a company in some cases more than 
just one person makes the web page happen.  The question is can a blind person 
do every aspect of web design?  The sad but true answer is no.  But in some 
cases as I said there is more than one person involved in the design of a 
website.  Web designer is not the only profession involved in the creation of a 
web page.  The person that does the graphic designed can also be called as a 
general label a web designer if he or she does it for web content.  The same 
goes for the person that just dreams up the concept of how it should look and 
work.  Yep even a concept designer can have the general lable of web designer 
if he or she does it for web content.  That's right web designer is just a 
general label people will use to explain what they do, but there is more than 1 
profession involved in web design.  Now can a blind person also be a web 
designer, the answer could also be yes.  For example  Inthane is considered the 
web designer for the grab bag site.  If there are any graphics on Inthane's 
site the person who designed the graphic for the site is also considered one of 
the web designers for Inthane's site.
          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: Octavian Rasnita 
          To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
          Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 2:04 AM
          Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


          Yes, a blind person can be a part of a team of web designers, because 
he can do some things.

          But he cannot be a web designer, because in that case he would need 
to make what an entire team of web design does. 
          The designer should not just place the images or other web page 
elements, but he also need to create the javascript that replaces the images 
with other images when hovering with the mouse on them, or align the images in 
terms of pixels not by their margins, but sometimes by on the elements 
contained on some images, and when the layout doesn't look nice he should crop 
the images, or add some transparent margins, but if someone else should do 
this, than we can say that somebody else should do the biggest part of the job, 
while the blind web designer should only type some html attributes.

          Octavian

            ----- Original Message ----- 
            From: Peter op 't Hof 
            To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
            Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 8:33 AM
            Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


            Hi,

            The only reason to have any luck in webdesign as a blind person is 
to use a content-managementsystem, so the images can be placed or by 
users/administrators/publishers or be placed by the blind person self with 
exact directions where to put the images whcich are design by an other person.
            The same goes for forms or charts.

            In my current job i do some of the functional design so there are 
many more ways to do a propper job in this field.

            I do not want to state that a blind person can do it allone.
            He/she has to be part of a team.

            Greetings,

            Peter op 't Hof.

              ----- Original Message ----- 
              From: Octavian Rasnita 
              To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
              Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 10:01 PM
              Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


              If somebody cannot even crop a simple image, that person cannot 
call himself a web designer.
              Even a kid can adjust some image or table sizes in an html 
document by setting some attributes in some HTML elements, but this doesn't 
mean that the person that can do this is a web designer.

              But maybe we speak about different terms. :-)

              See, in my native language, design means something related to 
visual things, like clothing design, graphic art. There are even design 
faculties that teach the students how to draw, how to do other visual 
arrangements that cannot be done by the blind. On the other hand, there are no 
faculties specialized only on "web design".

              And something else... The word "design" is very closed to the 
word "desen" in my language, and desen means "drawing", so when I hear about 
design, I understand that the person that does the design need to be able to 
draw, to paint, to do graphics in general.

              And another thing. If somebody should check and recheck and 
recheck the work of a web designer in order to see if what he done looks fine, 
because he cannot do it, then I don't think that person can name himself a web 
designer.

              And by the way, I would like to see a good looking site made by a 
blind if there is such a thing. Of course, not good looking and friendly for 
the blind, but good looking for the sighted users perspective. Is there such a 
thing? If yes, then please show me, because until then I won't believe that a 
blind person can work as a web designer.

              Thanks.

              Octavian

                ----- Original Message ----- 
                From: inthaneelf 
                To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
                Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 10:18 PM
                Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


                for that the company has a graphics designer, someone that 
specializes in such things, though with the programs I recommended to Marvin he 
can reliably size and place graphics on a web page, and I believe it was on the 
old programming list, the same place that we had this discussion last time.  

                in some places and some smaller companies one person does the 
graphics and the web design, in other places and larger companies the graphics 
designer and the web designer are two different people and work in tandem on 
something like this. 

                I don't know about slide shows, I don't remember if that was 
mentioned by him directly or not, but I do know that folks are building games 
in flash for the blind, go to the site I gave and look around, you will find 
them.  

                and it may be a case as with power point, once one is sure one 
has the proper materials for a PP presentation, one can construct a slide show 
in it.   I have done so, though it was a long time back so remember working in 
it, and yes, I remember having to work double hard and taking the maximum 
amount of time that we were given for the project, but I did it, and the 
project got me a B, so I think I did alright.  

                no, we can't yet work with graphics editing and/or enhancing 
directly yet teddy, but that's not always the case in the world, and stress the 
not always... as I mentioned above.  

                regards, 
                inthane
                . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, Useful 
Programs, and Links to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications, 
visit me at:
                http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com
                . to be able to view a simple programming project in several 
programming languages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at:
                http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com

                  ----- Original Message ----- 
                  From: Octavian Rasnita 
                  To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
                  Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 1:33 AM
                  Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


                  Where did he spoke?

                  I am curious how can he create/crop/modify the images, or how 
can he create the graphics on a Flash annimation and how he can verify if what 
he done is ok.

                  Where can I read about that?

                  Octavian

                    ----- Original Message ----- 
                    From: inthaneelf 
                    To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
                    Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:03 AM
                    Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


                    here we go with this again, *sigh* we have had a 
professional web designer out here, who was and is blind...  invited by James 
homme, and he spoke long and straight forward about this... 

                    later, 
                    inthane
                    . For Blind Programming assistance, Information, Useful 
Programs, and Links to Jamal Mazrui's Text tutorial packages and Applications, 
visit me at:
                    http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com
                    . to be able to view a simple programming project in 
several programming languages, visit the Fruit basket demo site at:
                    http://fruitbasketdemo.alacorncomputer.com

                      ----- Original Message ----- 
                      From: Octavian Rasnita 
                      To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
                      Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 11:25 PM
                      Subject: Re: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


                      Web site development could mean very many things, so they 
can tell you to do many things that are absolutely inaccessible for a blind.

                      It could mean server side programming, client side 
programming, database development, server and network administration, and these 
are accessible, but it could also mean web design which is not accessible, or 
so low accessible that it would not help any blind person to become a 
professional web designer.

                      Discrimination means very many things also. Nothing could 
exist without beeing discriminatory for some persons.
                      For the blind perspective, something absolutely not 
discriminatory would be something which has the same accessibility level for 
everyone, no matter if they can see or not.

                      In your case, if the other sighted persons would be able 
to do what that program requires, without using the display, it wouldn't be 
discriminatory, but it couldn't be that way, because all the sighted persons 
think that "sighted is normal", while "blind is not normal".

                      In this case, you could ask them to allow you not to 
follow the classes that requires using the mouse, because you cannot use a 
mouse.
                      If the professors or other students would be able to do 
what you need to do without a mouse but only with the keyboard, than I think 
you would be able to do it also.

                      Forcing a blind computer programmer to use a mouse could 
mean discrimination.

                      Octavian

                        ----- Original Message ----- 
                        From: marvin hunkin 
                        To: programmingblind@freelistsorg 
                        Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 7:24 AM
                        Subject: Accessible Adobe Photoshop and flash


                        Hi.
                        well, next year looking at doing the diploma in 
information technology, website development.
                        a couple of challenges i have, is that a couple of 
units, i probably will not be able to do, as one is to use advanced and basic 
features of adobe photoshop, to crop, manipulate images, and create 2d and 3d 
animation, using adobe flash, as part of my major project.
                        Now, the National Traning Information System, which is 
governed by a national curriculum, for tafe across Australia, and comes from 
the department of education, canberra.
                        now, as i will have trouble being deemed competent, 
because jaws, will not work with this software, as a core part of the course, 
and i have spoken to my disability office and the main lecturer, who organises 
the learning curriculum and talks to other lecturers.
                        they will be using adobe photo shop, adobe flash.
                        i know, i could probably use the flash development kit, 
but the major challenge is the graphics side of things.  So they are willing to 
bend, in their curriculum, as they said i would have an advantage, if i had 
sighted help to crop, edit and manipulate the objects.
                        so, got any tips, tricks, or any work arounds for that, 
or is this a dissability discrimination act complaint, that might change their 
mind and bend to accomodate, not just me, but another vision impaired friend of 
mine is doing the same diploma with new south wales tafe, as this is a national 
curriculum, and has been rolled out as the new training package for the past 12 
months.
                        if you can let me know, how to get round this problem, 
as the other subjects, i should be able to use php, editor, my sql database, 
visual studio.net 2005, for the asp stuff, etc.
                        if anyone has had the same problem or situation, let me 
know asap.
                        having a meeting soon to review what i have done this 
year for certificate iv in website development.
                        cheers marvin.


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