Re: Team Excellence Award Winner

  • From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:45:59 +0200

Well, not only in America happends that. Our televisions are the same, and they present the same kind of so called "information" that doesn't help anyone, but just help the people to lose their time without beeing bored... too much.


The blind children are taught in the special schools that they are so smart, so special, that some of them are more intelligent than other sighted persons, but after they attend the schools they find that they can't really do very many things in reality. Maybe those who are blind since their birth can't compare and can't understand how a really good-looking web page looks, and can't understand why they cannot make one, because the reality they can detect is just the very limited one offered by a screen reader.

Octavian

----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew2007" <matthew2007@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner


Teddy,

I think you really have to understand the culture here in the US. There is nothing but one stupid reality show after another on television, each telling the average idiot who participates that they too can be the next top singer, model, actor, and other meaningless crap. The fact of the matter is that most of those idiot participants do not possess the talent to do anything artistic, but each of them has been told in American books, television, songs, and movies that they too can all be the #1 XYZ if they simply try. I think the same thing is going on in the blind community. Every rehab type of educational facility feels its reasonable and preferable to overinflate the blind student's sense of accomplishment. This is a very bad mindset to put the average disabled person in because they will end up chasing an impossible dream. I will grant you that there are some truly talented blind individuals who may succeed in the sighted world, but they are very few. I feel it is because sighted people overlook deficiencies in many disabled students and simply move them along. I have also met blind students who play up their disability to engender sympathy from sighted professors. This of course ultimately means a substandard employee who doesn't deserve to be in the position they are occupying. While on his media tour to sell his book, I remember I heard an interview with that blind guy who climbed mount Everest a couple of years back. The radio hosts were lavishing all this awe and amazement at this poor blind person's impossible mission to the top of the world. this so called hero to the blind and all people on the planet conveniently forgot to mention to the radio hosts that he had a group of 15 people telling him where to place his feet and hands essentially making his blindness an insignificant matter of importance. By the way, it took him 2 months to climb to the top of the mountain. I wonder how long it takes sighted people to make the same trek--I think its about 10 days. Why would I pay a blind person the same amount of money to do average work when I can pay a sighted employee to do the same work in 50% less time with greater quality output. My point, blind people, please stop with the over inflated sense of self. Sighted people are lavishing tremendous praise on blind people because they can't see themselves being able to do the same things if they were blind. the fact of the matter is that if they too were blind and driven, they would find a manner of getting the job done just the same--might not be done well, but the job will get done eventually. those who question this post... pull out your money (dollar bills), throw it on the ground, then quickly count $16. As a blind person I know exactly what you have to do to accomplish this goal so don't give me your: "I can do anything just as well as a sighted person nonsense."

Matthew
----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:49 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner


Yes it is great, I didn't say that it is not.
I have also teached the blind users to use a computer, also teached html in a serial course on a mailing list for the blind in my country, and I think that the iT field is one of the most accessible fields for the blind.

But I said that I don't agree when I hear things like the fact that a blind web designer can be as good as a sighted one.


Octavian

----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon" <simoncwn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: Team Excellence Award Winner


Oh my, Teddy, that's just so wrong. It really is. My first impression when reading your mail was to go off on one, majorly. I won't, for many reasons. Suffice to say, when people with Jeff's talent do such things they should be commended not have their achievements belittled. So much is achieved, not just for Jeff, but for so many when things like that happens. It encourages the rest of us who want to get into web design/development, and it also raises the bar for blind people, no matter what field they are in. So well done Jeff, keep up the great work.
Cheers,
Simon
----- Original Message ----- From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:32 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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