Technology helps, technology hinders.
We’re all on unique paths with unique experiences
One of the first things people ask me when they’ve realised the shortfalls of my sight is “Do you read braille?”
The answer to that is; *snort* “No.”
I lost my vision as an adult, long after having a smartphone was a standard part of my life, so learning braille just never seemed worth the effort.
Modern technology means there has never been a more comfortable time to be blind.
Every person with a disability who uses technology to make their life and the world easier and more accessible goes on their own journey to find the tools and methods that suit them best. Most of my use of adaptive technologies revolves around screens.
Why I’m grateful for today’s tech
My blindness comes in the form of a very narrow field of vision and issues with glare. The glare sensitivity means I can’t read the standard black text on a white background in any medium or lighting. A hundred years ago, I would have had to give up reading and the fiction that brings me such joy – unless I could convince someone to read to me, but I suspect even if they loved me dearly they would throw the book at my head somewhere around the fifth hour.
Writing, for the same reasons would also have been tricky without screens infiltrating so many aspects of the modern world. I can still write with pen and paper. However my handwriting was atrocious even when I could see and now I just keep writing over the same spot (which makes my writing very layered, on many levels!).
Thanks to the advent of screens, I can still indulge in my favoured escapist and creative activities so I’m way less likely to burn the house down out of sheer boredom!
Screen time all the time
Every electronic device I have is set to Dark mode, with shortcuts to invert colours set up for those pesky apps that don’t have dark mode. White text on a black background is so easy to read, and not just for the visually challenged – you should give it a go!
Computers
On my computers at work and home, I have keyboard shortcuts that let me zoom in on any window and switch between inverted colours and regular colour themes with no effort. Thanks to these shortcut I have been able to continue working as an accountant (the rumours are true, the job is mostly playing with spreadsheets). My blinder friends use screen readers – programs that are more extensive that just text to speech functions. I know one programmer who has been blind his entire life and has always used screen readers. He always says he might write code slower than his colleagues but he makes fewer mistakes.
Kindle
I’ve had a kindle since kindles were still a conversation piece. My newest kindle is a model that has dark mode and a built in back light. With this model they’ve managed to get illumination without glare, I love it!
There is no such thing as perfection though, so although you can zoom in on the text of an actual book, the menus are teeny tiny. Still, it’s great for the train and I enjoy the confusion I cause in fellow passengers when, after using my cane to find my way to a seat, I pull out my kindle.
Phones and tablets
I used to be an android girlie, but I was converted to the Cult of the Apple when my employer gave me an iPhone.
Things may have changed in the couple of years since I converted, but for me, the accessibility features of the iPhone and iPad are so much easier to use than on andriod. There’s this little button thingy that you can move around the screen. With it you can zoom in and invert colours. The flexibility and convenience of this tool is something I appreciate every day. I would need to use screen readers without it.
Screen readers are very common in the blind community. However it’s not a tool I can speak to. I’ve still got some vision and thanks to the tools and methods I’ve found, I haven’t yet felt the need to explore screen readers. From what I can tell, it is a very different way of using a phone. What I can say the battery life on my blind friends’ devices is much longer than mine because they never need to actually turn on their screens.
My most widely used tool is the Magnifier app on my phone. It uses my camera and through it I can zoom in, invert the colours and change the brightness – whiteout taking a picture. It has more useful colour filters and is easier to navigate than the camera app.
With this app, I can zoom in on street signs, read restaurant menus and fill out paperwork. Most importantly I can cross stitch – another creative outlet. I use the magnifier app to control the lighting and the zoom on the specific spot I am currently stitching. It’s brilliant, even if it does chew up my battery. Cross stitching is a form of meditation for me, so being able to continue doing it for as long as I have is something I will forever be thankful for.
Audiobooks
Like I mentioned earlier, I have a kindle and it is in dark mode. Which is super handy. However, I still can’t read with it in the sun because bright, natural light is out to get me. With great reluctance I am making the transition to audiobooks.
Audiobooks are wonderful, especially when well read by an excellent narrator. It is also a technology that has been available to the blind community longer than accessible screens. Blind Low Vision New Zealand (Formerly Blind Foundation) has an entire library of audiobooks available to their members. They’re not Audible quality, but they aare free so no-one’s complaining.
My problems with audiobooks stems from my love of reading and my inability to sit still if my hands aren’t occupied.
I find if I have already read some of an author’s catalogue myself, I can’t get into an audiobook of their work, no matter how good the narrator is. Even if the narrator is perfect, if I’m familiar with the world and the characters all I can think is ‘they’re reading it wrong’.
As a pathway into audiobooks, I’m trying out authors I haven’t read before and genres I don’t normally read. I’m currently working my way through Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. The narrator, Cassandra Campbell, is proving to be amazing. She adds something to the story that would be missing with my kiwi mind voice.
The subtle arts
Then there are the less obvious technologies, like the blip-blip-blip-brrrrrrrrrrrrr noise at traffic lights that tell me where and when to cross the road.
Announcements on public transport about which stop is next are useful to everyone, not just us blindies. Auckland Transport recently bought those onto busses and it has made catching busses around Auckland much less stressful. I still get off at the wrong stop half the time but I’m less wrong now – only a stop or two too early instead of seven stops too late.
The dark side of tech
Of course, as with anything there are two sides to every technology. In many ways my life has been easier as I’ve adapted to my worsening vision than it could have been. In some ways, the wide adoption of certain technologies have made things more inconvenient than they need to be.
Self service checkouts
My problems with self service checkouts are both practical and in principal.
On the practical side of things; I can’t see the information on the screen. I can scan items and I can usually see the big green “Pay Now” button. But if I’m buying something from the bakery or produce sections, I need to get help finding the items in the menu.
In principal, I used to get paid to work checkout. I am not now going to do that job for free while I’m still paying premium prices. If there’s a staffed checkout option, I will wait in a longer line to go through that checkout rather than use self checkout. The white cane that makes my disability visible at least means I don’t have to explain why I’m waiting for the old-school checkout.
Order screens
There’s a fancy pancy new building in Auckland with a fancy pancy foodcourt. At a lot of the vendors, instead of placing an order with a person, you now have to place an order on the very bright touch screens where they’ve set the font to miniscule. Using those screens is a nightmare for me. I could use the magnifying/colour inverting app on my phone but it’s slow, and I miss things. I’d rather go to another vendor where I can order with an actual human person than try deal with those screens. I have in the past asked one of the staff to help me order on their screens, but they’re busy trying to cook the food and because customer service isn’t part of their job so it can be difficult to get their attention.
Elevators
In some really classy buildings, they’ve done away with lift buttons. Now, to call a lift you need to enter which floor you want into a screen. It’s not often that I find myself in a building that richy-rich but when I do, I struggle. Again, I can’t see the details on the screen – sometimes I don’t notice the screen at all and I’m just feeling up the wall like a weirdo. Unlike in the foodcourt, there isn’t always someone to ask for help. I’ve been late to a job interview before because I couldn’t call a lift.
Signing in
My current employer recently did away with the receptionist and replaced them with a tablet. Now, visitors to the office have to sign in on the tablet and the person they’re there to see is notified via email. I’ve come across this in the wild before – usually when I’m going for a job interview and trying to hide my blindness – and I can manage with the help of my phone. But it’s slow, and not a fun time.
The frustration is real
Basically, any time there’s a screen that I can’t adjust, things are less convenient for me than a fully sighted person. Generally, I can get around it – but that’s what inconvenient means, it’s not impossible just frustrating and sometimes a bit embarrassing.
Final thoughts
Overall, the pros of screen technology far outweighs the cons for me. It has kept the world and, more importantly, my favourite hobbies, accessible to me. Sometimes big corporates take it too far and use screens where old school buttons or a person did the job better, but as annoying as that is, there’s usually a work around.
