Yeah it seems that many of us agree now, and in fact one of the problems of this discussion was my english which is not good enough to express all what I think.
:-) Octavian----- Original Message ----- From: "Marlon Brandão de Sousa" <splyt.lists@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 2:18 PM Subject: Re: Competitiveness of blind web developers
OGood ... I sent five, six messages to that big thread trying to say what Jamal just wrote here. It seen that the only problem was a kind of comunication failed flow on that giant thing... If some of you remember the first message I sent, it was the fifth or sixth message, I said that a blind would never be able to compet with sighted on pure visual aspects of the whole thing, and for me a web designer is one worried with nothing but the pure visual stuff. I said clearly a blind would be more productive working in the back end, doing the logic buseness, since sight isn't needed to do this and components can be tested, planned, well developed, while a sighted designer can draw, plan interfaces, test, have insights and new ideas, in the visual area. Thanks Jamal for writing what most part of us were trying to say. I think blinds, in the vast majority of cases, can act as web developpers without problems, but they can't act as webdesigners. As for your google sample, Jamal, the main problem is that many companies are still living in the stone age, and htat's the reazon why google is taking so many leadership in several areas of services ... to most part of companies a good site still is one full of animations and colors, they still trust more on an apealing interface than in usability ... so emploiment, as seen by this perspective, would be a problem because few companies are more worried with usability, and a blind designer would succeed only in sites made with this in mind, so only a few companies would employ a blind web designer (note that I am talking about a blind web designer, not about a blind web developper). Another [problem is that, in some countries, one working with web stuff is expected to be a developper and a designer. People still didn't realise that an artist would be better with graphics than a developer, so they aquire one guy and want he / she does the logic and the interface, and if you talk these guys that a blind could only do the logical stuff they won't accept him because he can't do the interface. This is changing, but it is doing that a little slow ... but, as separation between web designer and web developper is becoming more used, blinds can meet more jobs in the web developement area. Marlon 2007/12/1, Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>:Given Octavian's prior experience as a sighted web designer, I take him athis word that he cannot do things he used to be able to do, and empathize with his implicit frustration at not being able to compete favorably with sighted web designers in every possible way.. With that said, however, I think it is flawed reasoning to think that we compete against people who have all of the same skills except for the addition of sight. As othershere have said, we compete with a combination of strenghts and weaknesses,one of the latter being the lack of sight -- for both its physical and prejudicial consequences. I submit that the combination of Octavian'sskills, by his own description, make him competitive as a web developer inhis country. I did say web developer rather than web designer, because I infer that the latter refers to highly visual aspects of web development. It is understandable that a blind person would be at a serious disadvantage in primarily visuall-oriented artistic expression. I do not think blind people can compete in painting, for example. To me, a more important question than the competitiveness of web design,thus, is the competitiveness of web development for blind people. I thinkOctavian is right that a lot of web sites emphasize "sexy" visual appeal, for which blind people cannot realistically compete in development. However, I do not agree that such web sites are the primary means of website competitiveness. Google -- the most popular web site in the world --has succeeded partly because of the usability of its design, which is not visually sexy, but highly usable. Many other sites would similarly benefit from principles that emphasize productivity rather than entertainment of the user, and users would reward such sites with their visitation and purchases. Thus, I think it is more meaningful to conceive of us competing as web developers rather than web designers. We cannot provide all the glitzy subtleties that the best sighted designers can do, but we can master principles of web site usability (including accessibility) that make the sites we develop both productive and pleasing to visit. These things said, I do think that we have to be extra good at nonvisual aspects of a profession in order to compete -- again, because of both physical and prejudicial adversities. We must, for example, know HTML, CSS, and principles of visual asthetics, mouse, and keyboard usability better than average in order to compensate for the disadvantages that we will fase as a result of blindness. Doing so is within the realm of possibility -- not just for the exceptions -- but it does require additional dedication to the field. Regards, Jamal __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for free." Linus Torvalds __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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