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#blind

31 posts25 participants1 post today

Something I've thought about today:

Android is kind of less "blind friendly". I use that to mean how well the OS, accessibility frameworks, and screen reader are working together to give an experience that doesn't assume a visual user. A really good showcase for this is scrolling. On iOS, if you swipe, you barely notice that the screen scrolls when you get to the bottom of it. On Android though, you can hear the half second or so it takes to scroll. Also there technically are no screen reader commands to scroll up, down, left, or right. There's just "scroll forward" and "scroll backwards," which means that if you scroll forward in an app with tabs, you might find yourself on the next tab rather than the next list of items.

Now, for those who only use speech, this is usable. But a lot of blind Android users who just explore by touch don't seem to get that "swiping" is all a Braille user can do. Like, the system should not care which way one navigates. And even though on a touch screen, you can scroll in any direction using two fingers, this isn't screen reader specific, so a Braille user cann't do that. But who cares about Braille, it's dead don'cha know? /s

Another thing that really gets on my nerves sometimes is putting in my PIN. I really need to try a password and see if that works better, but the PIN entry field isn't an actual keyboard, it's just an interface that looks like one. So, using a Braille display, I have to navigate one number at a time, and enter them by pressing Enter on the one I want. Sometimes I can press Space with dot 4 to go down a line of numbers, but sometimes that puts me on the bottom row instead of the next row. Of course, on iOS, I can type my passcode as expected.

It's also kind of baffling to me that Gemini on Android doesn't automatically speak or Braille responses whenever I type to it. It could easily send those responses to TalkBack. But, as usual, the hearing, speaking blind are the testers Google has, so of course the feedback is that it works, it's fine, and if there are any descenting voices, they're either drown out or unheard. And this is AI, the current money-maker and time-waster for all these companies. And yet, even in that, they still can't get accessibility right. Just look at it on the web. The thing says Gemini replied, except it hasn't even finished generating the response yet. Imagine if VoiceOver did that in iMessage and the person had just started typing, and VO didn't even say when they actually sent the message? The NFB would have all their resolutions on just that one topic.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of things in Android work well. But there are just these things that remind me that there really needs to be a big shift in Google regarding accessibility, and not just a surface-level cleaning, for Android to really lose that speech-only attitude of workarounds. Also I'm not saying iOS is anywhere near perfect, even for Braille. But when I do use Braille on iOS, I feel a lot closer to a second-class citizen than a third or fourth like on Android.

#Android#iOS#blind

„Von Barrierefreiheit weit entfernt“: Kann Theater für Blinde zugänglich werden? – Nachrichten aus Stuttgart

Stuttgart. In Deutschland leben mehr als 13 Millionen Menschen, die eine sichtbare oder eine unsichtbare Beeinträch…
#Stuttgart #Deutschland #Deutsch #DE #Schlagzeilen #Headlines #Nachrichten #News #Europe #Europa #EU #Audiodeskription #Baden-Württemberg #barrierefreiheit #Behinderung #blind #Germany #MenschenmitBehinderung #Seheinschränkung #Theater
europesays.com/de/195477/

Access Information News for Monday, June 16, 2025 - Volume 1019
accessinformationnews.com/ain2

♿️ The Week's News in Access Information
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #ain

Access Information News. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access information.

Subscribers: 40,025 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

Access Information News for Monday, June 16, 2025 - Volume 1019
accessinformationnews.com/ain2

♿️ The Week's News in Access Information
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #ain

Access Information News. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access information.

Subscribers: 40,025 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

Access Information News for Monday, June 16, 2025 - Volume 1019
accessinformationnews.com/ain2

♿️ The Week's News in Access Information
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #ain

Access Information News. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access information.

Subscribers: 40,025 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

From the Orca mailing list:

Hey all.

I plan to make all of Orca's commanded executable over DBus. It's going
to be a ton of work and I'm only getting started. That said, I just
landed what I have so far to Orca's main branch.

For users who said Orca must have a means for apps to tell it what to
say, Orca now has that. To try it -- assuming you have the very latest
Orca from the main branch -- do

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Orca.Service --object-path
/org/gnome/Orca/Service --method org.gnome.Orca.Service.PresentMessage
"Bla bla bla I'm a message"

For those saying Orca's speech should be controllable, by other apps,
see what's available by doing:

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Orca.Service --object-path
/org/gnome/Orca/Service/SpeechAndVerbosityManager --method
org.gnome.Orca.Module.ListCommands

Hopefully one of those commands is what you need. To learn more about
how to use them, here's some documentation:
gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca/-/

Please play with it and let me know what you think.

GitLabREADME-REMOTE-CONTROLLER.md · main · GNOME / orca · GitLabScreen reader for graphical applications that use the atspi protocol, via speech or Braille.

This felt too valuable not to share. Braille-labeled maps of washrooms to help people find and use facilities in the washroom. Everyone deserves to get in, do their business, wash their hands, and get out in peace and safety.

This seems valuable for all public spaces.

Replied to masukomi

@masukomi Speaking as a #blind person, #braille is just another tool in the box, but it's a tool which does not really have an equivalent in certain circumstances. It's not surprising that young people don't see its value, it's hard to learn, it separates them from a sighted society (unlike a phone), it makes them feel blind... That's leaving aside the advantages to parents and teachers, less work, less money spent by school systems more people able to teach phones (both costing less and being easier to get), you get the idea. The point is that there are certain areas where there is simply nothing else. Language learning without braille can be... difficult. So can coding, certain math, maps, certain diagrams, and doing pretty much anything as a person with more than a severe hearing loss. We go back to the tool, there are certain tools in some sets which look like they can never be used for anything but, when you come across a certain issue, are the only thing which will let you get past it. There is just nothing else which will help, or everything else is so hard as to be impractical. Of course, people go a bit crazy the other way. If you're blind and don't use braille, you have personally violated all the moral laws of the universe. That's nonsense, but it's a reaction to the equally foolish view that braille is useless. As I see it, life as a blind person is significantly worse than life as a sighted person. Braille can make that life somewhat better than it would otherwise be. That's all. No need for either thinking braille is useless or that it's holy. It's neither.

#blind : destitute of the sense of seeing, either by natural defect or by deprivation

- French: aveugle

- German: blind

- Italian: cieco

- Portuguese: cego / cegar

- Spanish: ciego

------------

Thank you so much for being a member of our community!

A #blind person in my feed was limiting that he seems to be the only one who gives a shit about #Braille these days. The younger generation being happy to let their phone just read text to them.

Here is a really good example of why braille is still important even in the age of smartphones

(this is a TikTok video showing a blind woman gushing about a sign outside of the bathroom that informed her about the full layout and what to expect inside)
tiktok.com/t/ZP8rLNRrk/

www.tiktok.comTikTok - Make Your Day

About a half year with Android, specifically the Pixel 9 Pro and can I just quickly express how much I love it?
I was on a Volksfest/festival today, driving the Ferris wheel. What would have been a little line in the sky turned to a, for me with 2% vision rest identifiable chairoplane, I could even see the seats, and while this was probably pretty pixelated for sighted people already, I just find it amazing. And in general this magnifier app is wonderful imo. Afterwards I made some pretty solid recordings, with just alone the nice stereo microphones this thing has, and when I returned back home Gemini helped me setting up a water gun I won at lucky draw.
This is how a phone should be, and this is accessibility, I ain't going back!
#Phone #GooglePixel #Blind #Accessibility #Android

If there's a subset of #Blind people who think braille is no longer important and give reasons why its not important, why do I still feel passionate about keeping it alive? It is something that I do not know yet I feel it is essential to have braille because I've always had it and yet people are saying its no longer needed in the real world .

Last boost, anyone who says that #Braille is dying is dead wrong. Braille is our code, it is the code for us #Blind people and its not dead, I read braille, many people read Braille, and it should continue to be taught and learned by people, it should never be allowed to go away, without it, we can't read, no, I'm not going to budge on this point and anyone who says different simply doesn't understand true literacy.