Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:59:16 +0200
Yes, I agree with this.
A few years ago I came with the idea of organizing a meeting of a group of
blind teens, most of them beeing students, for finding out what they need, what
they would like to ask from our national association of the blind, what they
would like to do for themselves, because I wanted to make something happen.
I was a newbie in the blind community that time because I became blind only
with a few years ago, and I didn't know personally most of the local blind
community members. Well, most of them started to talk about other things, about
their personal relations, remembering about their colleagues from the high
school, and finally they came with very few ideas about what they would like to
ask from the life.
Me and other 2 organizers of this meeting came with a few proposals for some
projects and decided to organize a new meeting where we hoped there will be
present more blind persons. That meeting was organized more officially, with
the participation of the president of the association of the blind local branch
and a blind professor....
There were less participants than at the first meeting, and no new needs nor
ideas presented in that meeting.
It seems that most members of our community don't care about anything, and I am
not talking about the old blind persons.
And the city I live in, I think it has the most developed community of the
blind in the whole country, even more developed than in Bucharest, our capital,
which has a population 6 times bigger than my city.
Most blind students from my country live in my city. We also have here a high
school for the blind, there are pretty many blind persons working in massage, I
am working in iT in financial services, there is a blind radio DJ, many
teachers, and a pretty big part of the team that worked for a free magazine for
the blind also lives here.
With all of these, most of the students don't care too much about other
pottential jobs than the teacher in the high school for the blind, and there is
a reason for this. They all know that no matter how good they are, even if they
would be perfect, it doesn't mean that they would be able to get a job if they
are blind.
It is very hard for some of them to adapt to the sighted community, because in
the high school they are told that they are great and that they are very
intelligent, and nobody told them that it doesn't mean too much always to be
intelligent, but sometimes you need to know how to sell yourself, how to enter
the window if the door is closed. The community of the blind seems to attract
the blind persons to the coomunity instead of helping the community members to
integrate in the sighted community in order to be as equal as possible.
The community of the blind never promotes itself, and in fact it might not have
what to promote.
A few years ago, when I was the cheif editor of that free magazine for the
blind I told about, we discussed on our mailing list about the idea of
contacting an important mobile phone operator (Orange), in order to ask them to
allow us to test the program they use in their customer care department,
thinking that if it is accessible, we could try to persuade them to accept
blind employees.
I have worked for that phone operator as a Regional Marketing and Cooperation
Fund Coordinator and I thought this could be a good idea.
Finally, we renounced to this idea because we found that even if Orange would
have wanted to employ blind persons as customer care operators, we were not
able to find blind persons that could fill that kind of position that time, so
we were fighting for nothing.
And it doesn't matter how high or low is the position. The president of a
foundation for the blind found a job for a blind person in massage a few months
ago, but he was refused, because to work is harder than to not work.
But I repeat, this would not be my expressed point of view when promoting our
community because it wouldn't be in our interest.
I could say that we, the blind persons can do very many things, give some
examples of very intelligent persons, persons that got prizes, scientists, and
other people of value, and those persons are real, no matter that they don't
reprezent the profile of the entire community. But when we talk in our
community I think that it is important to realize that our community is not so
great as we would like to be, and that's why I seem to be bad and seem to want
to tell that we cannot do anything.
Octavian
----- Original Message -----
From: John Greer
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
If it is equality people seek, perhaps a bit of unity in the blind community
is in order. Things like active protests in front of the Freedom Scientific
offices, television stations, etc. Much like the deaf community had done. It
seems that the blind community is far too passive. For far too long it seems
that the blind have been sitting back complaining and expecting others to
change it while not really believing things can change. However, it is coming
time for those career complainers to step up to the plate and be a part of the
changes that have already begun. The counsellors for the blind will never
learn unless we teach them, because we the blind know the system is broken. It
is far past time to begin to organize those marches on Washington and demand
those changes we seek. The organizations like NFB, ACB and AFB, while they
have done good things for the blind community have consistantly failed to bring
about equality and equal access in the consumer markets. Changes like these
can only happen with active protests and promotion of the alternatives. It is
true that money rules the world and if we the blind begin to take their money
away then the greedy will be forced to change. And so on and so forth, but
these types of changes are at this time being actively organized. Have a nice
day.
----- Original Message -----
From: Octavian Rasnita
To: programmingblind@freelistsorg
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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@freelistsorg
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.
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