Re: Visually impaired technical writers

[Lisa Higgins <lisarea -at- LUCENT -dot- COM>]

So then, Hutchings, Christa is all like:

><...> It's hard enough sometimes to get them to explain things to
> someone who can see and play with the gadget.

Of course, it's tougher. But then again, crossing the street, grocery
shopping, and many many other things are also tougher. But I think
you might be surprised at how adaptable people are. I worked with a
blind system tester not long ago, and he was able to do his job
autonomously with some very minor accommodations. I've been racking
my brain since the original post for the name of the software he
used, but I'm getting a fast busy and can't access that right now. It
was a voice emulator with some sort of audio cues that indicated
windows and stuff. It's all fuzzy now, although I will get back to
the original poster if I remember what this was called.

Regardless, this guy did his job and did it well. The accommodations
were minor and very reasonable. He didn't require any handholding, as
far as I could tell. And this guy had only been blind for about five
years. I've known several people who have been blind since birth, and
I can't even begin to imagine how they do what they do. There used to
be a little blind girl who lived down the street from me, and this
kid, at age seven, found her way around almost the entire Monty
Python's Complete Waste of Time CD. All I did for her was read what
it said on the screen. She did everything else (of course, she wasn't
very good at the pinball and whack-a-mole games...) I took her to the
zoo once, and she named and described every animal we saw. To her
parents' horror, she taught herself to ride her big brother's
bicycle. I'd hire her right now if she weren't only ten years old.
And if I hired people. Which I don't. But I digress.

At any rate, it seems as though it would be impossible to do a lot of
the things that we do every day if we couldn't see, but that is a
reality for a lot of people. I can't describe how they do it unless
it's just plain magic, but they do.

Lisa.
lisarea -at- lucent -dot- com