Yes of course we can have a job in this field, and as I already told, I have a job which also involves web design, but the examples of a few web pages or a few web designers blind or not blind are not important, because they are not suficient to prove that a blind person can do web design like a sighted. Telling that a celebre classic music composer that was deaf was able to still compose music, is not a sufficient example for telling that all the deaf musicians will be able to continue composing music. I don't say that we don't have the possibility of getting a job in this field, but I say that we won't be equal to the sighted in this field as some of the listers said. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: Dale Leavens To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 6:34 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Octavian, Imagine two mechanics. One is a big person with large hands and fingers, the other a small person, maybe a hundred pound woman with small agile hands and fingers. The big guy has to disassemble much of the interior to repair ductwork or some other component behind the dash board of a vehicle while the little lady can work up under there and get the job done rapidly and efficiently. On the other hand, perhaps she cannot lift and mount a heavy tire or release some bolts without help because of less strength or mechanical advantage. Who is the deficient mechanic? Which does not have a useful, perhaps indispensable place in the industry? Political correctness notwithstanding it seems clear to me that any reasonable person would conclude that the entire profession is enriched by the added diversity even if it took a little "equal opportunity" policy to move us "forward". Now people with views similar to those Matthew advanced might refuse to permit some little woman near their equipment and assume she only got her license out of some sort of equity programme and doubtless that does occasionally happen. I have a strong interest in carpentry and building. I have worked on and observed many building sites over the past several decades. You may rest fully assured that not all sighted builders are equal and although the very best might be better and quicker than the best blind one how ever one would measure that, I can assure you that this amateur and one or two other blind persons I know do better and quicker work than perhaps half or more of those sighted ones I have been able to observe. Not so sure how that would apply on high steel or bridge construction but again, not many sighted builders would choose to work on high steel either. I believe your view is way too narrow. There is of course also the danger of the view being to broad. You speak about someone making you a Web template with a WYSIWYG editor which generated incorrect and otherwise bad code. Is this a good Web designer? Clearly there were some deficiencies, you named some yourself. My son is a graphics designer, works for a moderate sized advertising company in London Ontario. He has an Honours degree in Studio Arts and a three year community college diploma from a large college in Toronto. He is but one member of a team of creative personnel each of whom specializes in some or other aspect of their work. Just now he is involved in becoming more proficient with animation tools for some or other particular project they are taking on. It is an aspect of Web and other publishing they just haven't needed until now or perhaps just haven't pursued I don't know that. Still, there are a number of others in the company who are not involved in that aspect of Web design and maybe never will be. Although none are blind one or two might well be but would probably never take on my son's roll. After all the other sighted people are not. The time may come when all need to be competent with animation software. Sighted or blind there then wouldn't be a place for them in that team though in fairness, maybe the sighted people or some of them at least would have the option of learning which the blind person probably would not. This leaves that blind person right down there with the majority of his sighted colleagues. Matthew's shopfront business may not attract as many customers as the sighted proprietor's next door because people would assume a blind person is not capable just as when they pass the blind lawyer's office. That the lawyer satisfied the bar exam notwithstanding. Depending on their needs those customers might well be accepting second best but ignorance can do that to you sometimes. It may be that behind the scenes that blind person has to work harder or smarter or longer or adapt processes. It might even be that the adapted processes turn out to be superior. What is significant is that the product meets or exceeds standards. We here in North America are fully aware of a number of products recalled, made in China. Those with the narrow view blame Chinese manufacture. No one seems to want to look at the specifications the American designers and distributors set for that manufacture. Now while I don't know for sure my bet is that there wasn't one blind person involved either in the United States or China in any of that decision making. If there were of course then there would be a substandard blind worker to implicate rather than a chinese assembly line working to American specifications. Maybe the blind guy used leaded paint because he couldn't read the label on the can. You might then have a valid case. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada DLeavens@xxxxxxx Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: Octavian Rasnita To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 2:59 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Well, it doesn't matter if you care about the competition or not, because in what I said I didn't want to prove that your site is not good or something like that, but I wanted to show that a blind person cannot be as good as a sighted person in web design. If we want to compare us with the sighted, we should compare what the best blind web designer is able to do with what the best sighted web designer is able to do, and the least good blind web designer with the least good sighted web designer, because otherwise we compare apples with oranges. And by the way, speaking about apples and oranges, probably your site has more sighted visitors because there are more sighted persons on the world, but if we think in percentages, in order to see for whom is your site more attractive, for the blind or for the sighted, you might find that even if your site has a million sighted visitors and only 20000 blind visitors, the percentage of the blind visitors from the population of blind visitors is double than the percent of sighted visitors from the whole population. Many of us (the blind) use to create free web sites with helpful things on them, but this just prove that maybe most of us don't have the opportunity to create tens of web sites for money, and it just proves that we might have too much free time that we want to occupy, because the potential employers do care about the competitivity but we are not very good at that point, and that's why most of the blind persons don't have a job. If they would be as good as the sighted visitors for creating web design as we are in other fields like massage, the unemployment rate of the blind would be much lower, and very very many of us would be working in this field, because it would be a very accessible field otherwise. Why do I care to say that? I have a very good job, and I also do "web design" if I can call it that way, but I cannot compare with the best sighted web designers, and I do really need to compare with the best sighted web designers, because the financial field in which I work use to attract very good sighted web designers, and I need to compete with them. It means absolutely nothing that me, as a blind, I am a better web designer as thousands sighted web designers. Who care about that, because maybe I need to compete with the best few thousands not with the worse of them. Aproximately 2 years ago I asked a sighted web designer to create for me a good looking template that I needed to use for a site I made, and he made that template for me, but not only that it didn't respected W3C's recommendation, but it was really made absolutely incorrectly, using a WYSIWYG editor, and for example for each field in a form it used to start a new <form ...> element. And of course, there were other even worse mistakes. Well, I corrected it, and then after the code was a little clear, I started to analyse it, and I've seen than in fact that so called "design" was just a simple common type of simple web page, with a few navigation links aligned by some tables, and a few images, with absolutely nothing special. Well, I could also make such web page, but that thing is not "web design" at all. So I renounced finally and I've made my own design. For high standards commercial web based applications however, I can't say that I would be able to do everything I want, because some things that might be required are absolutely inaccessible for the blind visitors, and it would be pretty hard to be blind and to create something that's not even accessible for us as users. And I just remember a similar story with the one I told you before, when I needed to renounce to use a template made by a sighted web designer, even though he told me that he has followed a course for web design, and that he has a diploma. He finally created for me a template with some tables and a few image buttons, and the extraordinary part was a javascript code copied from somewhere that used to change the images with other images when hovering the mouse over. As I said, maybe 99% of the web sites don't have anything in common with "design" but maybe with html craftmanship, and we, the blind, can work for that kind of web sites, maybe with many exceptions like creating images, choosing and matching the colors, creating Flash annimations, but we can do it. Even the worse pages from those 1%, that really involve design, imagination, talent in visual arts are the ones that can't be made by a blind, and those are the pages we are talking about. So if somebody thinks that every page require those talents and some of them can be made by the blind, please don't confuse the terms, as they are often intentionally confused by the people or companies that want to show that what they made is something good. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: Bryan Garaventa To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 3:30 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Ah well, I guess this just proves the point... You can't please everyone. I really couldn't care less that my site isn't a 'competitive good web design made by a blind', because that was never my intention in the first place. A team would consist of two or more developers working on the coding for a project, or by taking responsibility for various tasks of that project to accomplish the goal as a whole. However, all developers, blind or otherwise, depend on user feedback to enhance the quality of their products. If an architect were to create a building, and asked someone with a mobility impairment whether they liked and considered the building suitable for their needs, would this then make the architect less of an architect? Would they have to be considered a team? Moreover, if this hypothetical architect had no knowledge regarding the installation of plumbing, and thus relied on someone else to complete this task, or at the least, provide the knowledge necessary for him to complete the task, would this make him any less of an architect? All developers have weaknesses in their knowledge and methodologies. The good ones however, take the extra time necessary to compensate for them by either learning how to overcome such, or by consulting those with the knowledge to help them do so. This does not degrade their status as a developer. Saying that, if you cannot do everything within a specific field, you are somehow proven to be substandard within that field, is ridiculous. It is impossible for any one person to know everything. As far as my own site goes, I really had no intention of making it a statement for blind developers, or even making this a focus point for the site. Nor did I have any intention of creating a competitive blind site to compete with sites created by other blind developers. At first it was a learning experience, a place to try out new ideas and hone my skills in various web design techniques and languages. Within the last four years or so though, my goal has shifted to attracting more sighted visitors. My reason? Well, that's fairly easy actually... I'm really a bastard capitalist at heart, and the sighted market share is much wider than the blind one. As it now stands, the majority of my web traffic comes from sighted users. Also, the majority of services and downloads are also being used by sighted users. This is not because I prefer one over the other, but rather, because I did put so much time and effort into ensuring a good experience for both sighted and non-sighted users. For being a bastard though, I like to think at least that I'm a nice one... ----- Original Message ----- From: Octavian Rasnita To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 12:14 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner See? I don't consider this a competitive good web design made by a blind. Your sight might look really nice, but if you needed much more time to create it, and then you need other sighted persons to check it now and then in order to be sure you didn't make any mistake, the result is not a web design made by the blind, but a design made in a team. And yes, as I said in a previous discussion on the list on the same subject, a blind person can be a part of a web design team. But if you are a part of a web designers team and you can't do everything, then you cannot be a web designer. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: Bryan Garaventa To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 10:27 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Yes, true enough. The problem that I've come across repeatedly is that everything is relative, and you can't please everyone. For instance, it took me a long time to get gutterstar.net to look visually appealing. My goal was to produce a site that was appealing to both sighted and non-sighted users, while preserving accessibility. The difficulty for myself though, was that I lost my site before the internet was ever around (well the localnet was around, but this was mainly bulletin boards...). I've never seen a web page of any sort, so when I was learning CSS and various layout methods, I needed visual feedback to notify me when I was making mistakes. Mistakes are easy to do with CSS, especially when layering and overlapping start to occur. So, I would ask someone to check it out, and they would say "Oh wow! That's awesome!". That was great, it made me feel all fuzzy inside like I had actually done something worth while. Then, I would tell someone else about it, all proud of course, and they would report back "Why are all of your web pages that horrid brown color? It makes them look like... Well... You know..." And my first overreaction is "What the hell is wrong with JAWS! I checked the bloody colors when I wrote the damned thing..." and so on... Well, it took a lot of trial and error, but eventually I got the hang of it, and can now fairly accurately determine what the consequences of various code implementations will be. Unfortunately though, I really wouldn't have been able to get to this point if I hadn't received visual feedback during the learning process. Being blind sucks, but it's a condition like any other. If visual feedback will aid me in accomplishing a task, I'll be the first one to seek it out. I've learned the hard way that being too proud to do so, is a lonely and fruitless occupation. ----- Original Message ----- From: Octavian Rasnita To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 10:07 AM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Yes I also like when the sighted or the blind have complaints, because most of the times I know what I need to change for making the site look better. But the problem is that sometimes the complaints sound like "Oh, but that page is not nice. Please make it to looke nicely. Can't you?", or "That stock chart has the lines too proximate, and I can't see them very clear", or "those 3 charts with volumes and the other 2 indicators should be put in the same image below the main candlestick chart", and so on. Well, those charts are generated dynamicly, by the program, and by a program that was not made by me, because it would take a very long time just to make that program that generates the graphic, and I need just to change it in order to "look better", but I cannot see the distances between the lines or other things like that, (like a sighted person easily can), and I don't have the time for making studies about how to do that, because this is a very very small part of the job I need to do. I know that a blind person that stays at home the entire day in front of the computer, has the necessary time and power to study and make tests in order to do this kind of complicated things, but even in that case, they won't be able to do anything without having some sighted help for telling them how the result looks. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: Bryan Garaventa To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 7:33 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner That's alright, I haven't actually received any complaints. If I ever do though, it simply indicates an area for improvement. I've always been open about this to my clients, and they appear to appreciate it. ----- Original Message ----- From: Octavian Rasnita To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:05 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner You cannot ignore the complaints if the complaints come from the customers, because they might choose to work with one of your competitors. And most of the times the sighted users don't have any complaints, but just don't like and just don't use a site that they don't like. Octavian ----- Original Message ----- From: Bryan Garaventa To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:59 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Hey, I'm rather pleased with the layout of gutterstar.net... I'm pretty sure the layout looks appealing, I know I've put enough work into it for me to believe this anyway... All I have to do is ignore the complaints? ----- Original Message ----- From: Darragh Ó Héiligh To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 12:22 PM Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner Quote: > Please tell us where can we see the web page made by that blind guy, and I > will tell you if a blind person can do it without sighted help. > I've seen many messages on this list telling how cool web pages can a > blind > > do, with with no single example. > > Octavian > take a look at: www.nickykealy.com www.kenoheiligh.ie also look at a cached version of nvm.ie and digitaldarragh.com my own website is down at the moment as I'm restructuring it and the online version was getting in the way. I'm by no means a designer on par with a sighted person but it can definitly be done. it just takes a bit more determination.