A Recent Answer from r/Blind
Hi everybody,
My name is Madina and I am a student at George Washington University. My classmates and I are working on a project linked to assistive technology and the accessibility of products and services for visually impaired people. You will help us a lot if you answer the following questions. Appreciate your participation.
What age group describes your best?
Degree of blindness.
Do you use phones for assistance in your daily life?
What apps or programs help you in your daily life?
Do you use finance or grocery-related apps that provide special services for the blind?
Will you be willing to change your bank if it offered distinctive services for visually impaired people?
What is the most challenging task in your daily life due to your sight limitations?
What services or products would you like to be more accessible for visually impaired people?
Thank you once again and have a wonderful day!
Kind regards,
Madina
What age group describes your best?
Mid fifties
Degree of blindness.
Legally blind, deteriorating fast, probably a year or two away from total blindness.
Do you use phones for assistance in your daily life?
No, I use it to make calls and send text messages. I have family for everything else.
What apps or programs help you in your daily life?
My white cane. I zoom in on my laptop so I don't need a screen reader very often.
Do you use finance or grocery-related apps that provide special services for the blind?
I shop with my wife or one of my kids, so I don't really need an app to help shop. My wife and I share a joint checking account so there isn't much need for a special financial app - I just look cute and ask her for money.
Will you be willing to change your bank if it offered distinctive services for visually impaired people?
Probably not, but I would consider it if the distinctive service was good enough. The people at my local branch have always been respectful and helpful to me.
What is the most challenging task in your daily life due to your sight limitations?
Our finances have fallen off a cliff since I quit working. Seriously, being blind isn't nearly as hard as being unemployed. I don't want more gadgets for the blind as much as I want an answer from Social Security.
What services or products would you like to be more accessible for visually impaired people?
Honestly there isn't much in my life I'd change. Blindness is more of an inconvenience than a tragedy for someone with a close family and a good support system in their life. I'm sure it would be much harder being blind and alone, and hopefully you'll get other perspectives than just mine.
But since you mentioned it, what I'd absolutely love is a camera installed underneath a kitchen cabinet that can read aloud the print on any package I set on the counter beneath it. Something to tell me if this can of chili is gluten free, how much water to add to this box of Mac & Cheeze, when this carton of milk expires, is this can of soup tomato or chicken noodle, how much potassium is in this bottle of coconut water, and how many calories are in this granola bar.
Thank you so much for your responses! You have a great sense of humor! Love it!
You're certainly welcome.
I'm saddened to see you only got one response. Blindness is a big tent and what I need is very different from what other blind people need. Some of us have no central vision, others have no peripheral vision, some of us are nearsighted, some of us are farsighted, some of us can't see anything at all, on and on and on.
To really get an understanding of the blind experience you should have more than just my perspective. I'm just one of many, a single data point in a diverse population.
But as sad as it is to see no other responses, I can't say I'm surprised. Before we placed this sticky survey thread r/Blind was overrun with questions from outsiders. Good content by blind people for blind people was kinda hard to find between all the middle schoolers in Nebraska asking us to help them with their social studies homework. We reluctantly did our time as the blind version of r/AskReddit so I understand why my friends stay away from this thread. We've been interrogated more than the guys at Guantanamo Bay!
I just want you to understand I'm not speaking for The Blind Community. If you ask a hundred different blind people what we want you'll probably get 90 different answers. Please don't read too much into what I'm about to say.
Blindness isn't a tragedy - it's merely an inconvenience. Tech solutions aren't going to save us because we don't need to be saved. Tech can make our lives more convenient but please know I'm not frustrated or unhappy while I wait for someone to invent a better gadget or app for the blind. If you approach this as a crusade you'll be disappointed when we don't think of you as our liberators. It's not you - it's us. I'm having too much fun dancing at the eighties club to let a little thing like blindness ruin my day.
My white cane is all I want. I don't need it to vibrate to warn me I'm approaching something - the cane already tells me when something's in my way. That's literally what it's designed to do. I don't want a hat that detects low hanging branches or a belt with proximity sensors on it. Others might, but the market is smaller than you might think. Many people won't wear anything that identifies them as blind. Others get by just holding the hand of a loved one, or with a guide dog, or with a white cane.
I love my cane. It's the greatest conflict de-escalator ever made. I can knock over your luggage at the airport, run into your kid at the grocery store, or bump into you on the sidewalk - as soon as you see the white cane in my hand your anger fades away and everything is forgiven. People want to be good. My white cane gives them permission. It spreads love. Seriously, I had no idea how great it would be until I used one. It brings out the best of human nature. People's beauty comes out when they see it.
Do you understand why I wouldn't trade it for a phone app or a vibrating belt?
Like I mentioned in the earlier post, what I want is help in the kitchen. I don't drive so I don't go very many places alone. When I'm out I'm with my wife or one of our kids. That's all the assistance I need to shop for groceries. But when I cook I'm alone in the kitchen. My wife has a full time job and the kids might technically live here but they work graveyard shift at the drive up window at the local burger joint so I cook alone.
Imagine every label was blank on every can of food in your pantry. Welcome to our world.
Is this can beans or peaches? Is this box stuffing or breakfast cereal? Is this can of soda diet or not? Or is it a beer?
I had a pretty good system going until my wife decided to rearrange the kitchen a few months ago. I still don't know where the lid to the blender goes now.
NOTE TO SIGHTED PEOPLE - LET US REARRANGE THE KITCHEN NEXT TIME, YOU MONSTERS!
Phone apps can be great. There's an app that lets me point my phone's camera at a sign in Braille and it reads the translation aloud to me in English. Stuff like that is fantastic for that one scenario that's unlikely to ever happen, but if it ever does, I've got the app.
Banking and financial apps won't help me at all. My wife took over the finances when I went blind. She has to read all my mail to me and fill out all the paperwork anyway.
I'd love to help you if you design something for identifying packages and cans in the kitchen. Right now all I use is elastic bands wrapped around the spice bottles so I can tell the nutmeg from the curry. DM me any time, even if it's just so you can tell your professor you have a blind consultant on your team.
If you want to get more of a feel for life without eyesight, check out my blog. I promise it's less painful than wearing a blindfold and banging your shin on the open dishwasher door.
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