What's so hard about explaining a screen reader? It's software that reads the screen to you. What's the big deal? People often have the most ridiculous ideas about what blind people do and what we have and what we want. We're either daredevil superman-like or drooling imbecils. We either have bionic tech, or we use treebranches for canes. It's never anytiung in between. What you dexcribe as their idea of how we interface with our computers is a key example.
My rant for the day. Alex----- Original Message ----- From: "Yardbird" <yardbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 12:11 PMSubject: How many sighted people think the blinds use computers )was jaws speech recognition software)
This may strike you as sad, or amusing, or both, depending on your mood atthe moment. My overall impression from all the fully sighted people to whom I mention, say, that I Googled something, or read an article in the New YorkTimes Online, or hand them a sheet of printed material needed for aparticular situation like the medical visit to which, being a good patient, I bring a list of my daily medications rather than lug along each time, to each doctor, a bag containing five pharmacy bottles distinguished from each other by means of rubber bands, scotch tape, masking tape, electrical tapeand combinations thereof, is a sort of mystified relief. I may be disabled officially, according to the long white cane, but I'm not entirely blind, which means to them able to see nothing at all. the truth about my visual impairment is that it's from a retinal degeneration that's a kind ofcone-rod dystrophy, meaning the central vision that once allowed me to read,or see peoples' faces, etc. is extinguish, but I still have a constantly diminishing bit of far peripheral vision which, as sightlings know well,might enable you to catch a basketball pass coming at you from the side butwouldn't allow you to read the ball manufacturer's name and logo, say Spalding,even if the ball were to stop spinning and coming at you and justhang, mid-air, a few feet short . The natural inclination of a fully sighted person at a hypothetical moment like that would be, of course, just to turntheir head a few degrees so they could see the ball sharp and clear using their central retinal vision. Of course, if I were to do that, the ball would completely disappear. Such folks, usually having no idea of how the retina works, always guessthat however little remaining vision I might have, it must serve for readinga computer screen and manipulating the computer with my hands, includingdepending on the mouse for everything it's capable of doing. Sort of like a case of Retinitis Pigmentosa that's down to narrow tunnel vision, but those5 or 10 degrees of remaining central function have normal acuity that's needed for what we mostly mean we're using when we say we're looking at something. I explain, as briefly as I can, that no, all I see in front of me is abray-blue blur with stuf moving around on it as the display changes in this way or that, that I can tell is my computer monitor, and a black rectanglein front of it on the desk that I know is my keyboard. Like most severely low vision and totally blind people, I explain, I use a program knowngenerically as a screen reader. Mine is called Jaws. This sometimes elicits a laugh moment during which we both chant the mysterious the shark is comingmusic from the movie, establishing common ground that I've seen at least something of the world as they themselves know it, breaking down some of that barrier sighted people seem to feel that a blind person is completely out of reach simply because they can't see you smile or frown or even see you've come into the room, which often causes them a kind of paralyzing panic. Which they quickly replace, in a venue like a restaurant, with what they think will be the practical work-around of addressing all their questions to your companion, should you be lucky or unlucky enough to haveone. What would he prefer to drink with that? Does he like broccoli?Would heprefer the baked potato or the French Fries? To which a good friend will always say "I don't know. Why don't you ask him yourself?""But I digress, as is my wont. The minute I mention a screen reading program,they see the U.S.S. Enterprise starship captain, say Captain Picard of thesecond series, sitting back, in his big comfy captain's chair, ordering thecomputer to make and send him up a cup of Earl Grey tea, hot, and incidentally increase ship velocity to warp speed. If you've never seenthis,infer something else more easy to imagine other than visually. But it's the sort of thing those people often refer to. "Oh," they say. "So you talkto your computer and it does what you tell it to . Isn't it wonderful, all this technology they've come up with these days?" if I'm really put off by the way they say all this, sometimes ;; I lose my cool and start wagging my head from side to side and singing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely." Of course, politely boiling down how a screen reader works is about as challenging, for me anyway, as explaining retinal degeneration, but thereyou go. The very idea of a screen reader, for anyone who hasn't happened tohave seen one in use, is just not something that comes easily to mind without a little education.Just trying to get my fingers working with my first mug of coffee. Sort of apre-game warm-up. Joel -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.comJFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxTo unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfwAlternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.htmlIf you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw Alternative archives located at: http://n2.nabble.com/JAWS-for-Windows-f2145279.html If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
