Well put. I have replied to a related thread accidentally, and I wanted to
reply to this thread directly to make an appeal to all of you to please
abandon this thread. I feel indirectly like it is my fault as I am the
recipient of the award ...
I never intended that the news of the award even make it to this list, but
I think Jim posted it in the hope that it would be encouraging
reinforcement to others -- especially the young students aspiring to a
programming career -- to learn that the blind programmer is equal to the
sighted counterparts if the effort is exercised. The irony in it is the
fact that the only blind member of that large team of distributed app
developers that worked on the UI is blind. All of this is getting lost
and has become dismayingly off topic. Let's please get back to the
discussion of software development and so forth.
Kind regards,
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dale Leavens" <dleavens@xxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
This entire thread is ridiculous. Loads of sighted people can't design a
decent Web site. Just when did it become necessary for each and every
blind person to perform above the standard of the best sighted designer or
anything else for that matter. That is a pretty high standard and just
below God.
Loads of blind programmers and Web authors can out design and out code
many thousands maybe millions of Web pages out there. Why isn't that
enough? If one excels for any reason at any level let us celebrate that.
I am a Physiotherapist. I am darn good at rehabilitating acquired brain
injuries, I suck at respiratory conditions and don't much care. This does
not negate my value. Admittedly I haven't won any awards either.
Congratulations and thank you to the extent I, as a blind person can
benefit from any reflected glory.
Now can we possibly return to the regularly scheduled programme?
Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada
DLeavens@xxxxxxx
Skype DaleLeavens
Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Léonie Watson" <tink@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:14 PM
Subject: RE: Team Excellence Award Winner
Matthew,
You seem to be suggesting that a VI person can't succeed, or rise to
eminence in their field, in a sighted world. I sincerely hope that you're
suggesting nothing of the kind, but perhaps you'd be good enough to
clarify
your scepticism?
Regards,
Léonie.
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew2007
Sent: 29 November 2007 16:30
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
In an effort to take your anecdotal post and bring it to life, name these
people. I want to try to find them and research the particulars of their
situations. After all, there is a nice big picture from 2003 of that moron
in the white house standing on a freight carrier next to a sign stating
"victory." We all know what this picture leads us to believe, but the
truth
is very different.
Matthew
---- Original Message -----
From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:45 AM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
*taking a deep breath*, *counting to ten*,
*reciting mantra's to calm my spirit*
teddy, one doesn't become a professional foot ball player in the NFL by
being better than the worst foot ball player, or by being even with the
average players despite his having only half of his right foot...
one does not become a respected and well paid attorney by being just
better than someone who knows nothing about the intricacies of the law,
nor a professional class skier by being equal to sighted average skiers,
despite the fact that the gentleman is both blind and a double amputee...
one does not earn the title of fencing master, even sighted, by only
fencing with those who are average with a foil, or by fencing only with
those who are blind, even if one is blind themselves...
these are the types of people I am talking about, they are masters of
there fields, despite there disadvantages, not over those who don't or
haven't learned how, I'm talking about people with distinct disadvantages
that makes there choice of work seem ridiculous to many, and force the
world to recognize that if one wishes to, and is willing to do what is
required to accomplish it, that they can be a top gun in there field, no
matter what...
quit with the f... reeking you can't, because if one of us wishes to put
forth the effort, and the time, we can, period end of quote!
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" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Oh yes that could be true. There are sighted persons that don't even
know
how to use a computer. So we can say that we as web designers are better
at web design than them. But who cares that we can be better than those
sighted that don't know too many things?
We should be better comparing us with the medium-skilled sighted web
designer.... at least.
But unfortunately a medium-skilled web designer might know to create
images, maybe a little Flash, some Javascript, and nobody will care that
he doesn't put a document type declaration at the top of his web pages,
or that his pages won't be W3C compliant.
If you will check the Google's web page with the W3C's html validator,
it
will tell you:
Failed validation, 30 Errors
So... of course W3C's validator is not important at all, because
Google's
page is very accessible, very simple, and with a design.... better said
almost without any design.
Octavian
----- Original Message -----
From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
teddy that is far from what I meant, my computer locked up on my
previous reply, so I'll take my time since I seem to have a habit of
overloading my machine, and I'll get back on this later, if I don't
decide it doesn't warrant a reply when I cool down...
I can tell you about a number of "handicapped" people that have
mastered
areas that are thought of as "sighted and fit" only areas as well or
better than most of there "whole and healthy" fellow humans
laters,
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" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Oh yes, that's true, and sometimes the screen reader doesn't even show
us the correct colors, and even if it show us that 2 words come one
after another in the same line, it doesn't tell us that maybe the
first
is a static word in a iframe element and the other one is a text
written dynamicly by a javascript code, and it might scroll slowly up
or down becoming very confusing for us at a page refresh.
I think we shouldn't fight for beeing what we can't be. Oh yes, there
are handicapped people without a leg that participate in different
sports, showing that they can do more, but we all know that they will
never be equal to a healthy person, no matter how good or bad he is.
And let's not forget that the productivity of the work is also
important. What we can do would have a very low value if we would be
able to do it in a much longer period than a sighted designer.
Octavian
----- Original Message -----
From: "inthaneelf" <inthaneelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
which except for rare occasions is not practical Marlon, since we
live
in a sighted world, and the majority of folks that we are going to
need to deal with are sighted, I'm sorry that you have no experience
in the visual view of things, this is one area where I have an
advantage.
but... you can't avoid the visual world, it's out there, it's the
majority, and so you might as well learn the tricks for dealing with
it, use the standards and templates when and where you can, and do
your best to adapt.
the best description for trying to convey sight to a person that has
never had it, was spoken by a blind dude that never had sight in his
life,
its the description I use now a days, since I have found myself often
trying to describe visual aspects to those who have never had site.
one thing you should do if you haven't, go to a web site, keep
yourself at the top of the page, and turn on the invisible cursor and
go up and down the page to see what it actually looks like, such as,
the that that instead of the vertical column that jaws presents us
with, that its actually more like a message written in Braille,
including the navigation links which run from left to right across
the
page, not in the vertical column that is presented to us.
take care, and good luck,
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: "Marlon Brandão de Sousa" <splyt.lists@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner
Hello folks,
Well I have never seen ... so I have no a ... let's call it ...
visual
standards so, although I can technically do it very well ... I can
not
plan, like imagine, build ... a nice visual interface, because I
don't
know what it is expected. A quick example is I beleaved gfirmly that
the windows explorer put the folder treeview in the top and the
listview below it, and I couldn't beleave when a guy tould me
naturally that the treeview was in the left and the listview was in
the right!!!!
Similarly, because of the top down aproach most part of screen
readers
use to present web content, I have dificulties to imagine hwat
exactly
sighted people expect to see in a webpage or something like this.
I can plan the components of the interface, but deciding * and
putting
* them in the more "apropriate" place or planning what would happen
if
one changes their screen resolution or diicovering by teory how
browsers would react to it without testing is something very
different.
If I had been sighted (and lost my sight after the modern look and
feel's I perhaps would be totally able to build interfaces based on
the standards of what should be common to folks, but the only thing
I
can do for now is build an interface based on someone's
specifications. And even then I will spend eforts trying to build
something which belongs to a group of situations that I can't
imagine
very well ... and, again, I wouldn't be able to test my own work,
which seen something pretty nasty to any [programmer I know of ...
now
the point is: For sure many blind folks can do gui's, but they will
feel more confortable and be more productive if they're doing
something which has not a visual result as its goal ... which should
be perfectly logical.
Thanks
Marlon
2007/11/28, jaffar <jaffar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Hi Jim. Excellent news. Congrats Jeff. Just shows what, if you
all will
forgive the pun, application will do for one, not to mention hard
work and
determination, and the willingness to try. Cheers!
----- Original Message -----
From: <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:42 PM
Subject: Team Excellence Award Winner
>
> Hi All,
> Where I consult, one of our fellow listers was on a team who won
> a
> very
> prestigious award. The team developed a highly visible web
> application.
> Jeff Fidler designed and coded the GUI interface for the site
> using HTML,
> CSS and Javascript. He used Section 508 and W3C techniques and
> the
> sighted
> people in the company rave about it.
>
> I write this to urge anyone who thinks that someone who is blind
> cannot
> design Web interfaces well to keep on trying. You can do it.
>
> Jim
>
> James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
> james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
>
> "Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can
> change the
> world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret
> Mead
>
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