There are enough social networks for the blind, $1 and $1 being the too largest, that I don't think I'd use yet another. Also, social networks for the blind just tend to be virtual ghettos. That's why I'm a fan of a community like this one; we're using exactly the same site everyone else is, and /r/blind doesn't have to be the only community we interact with. We also get a lot of sighted people like yourselves coming through, who might not bother signing up for a "blindy" website. So it's far less isolating. My advice is for you to focus on new and innovative ways to make existing social networks accessible, so blind people can have an easier time interacting with our friends and family online, and making new friends on the wider Internet. Currently, I'd say Twitter is pretty much a solved problem, as there are enough clients for blind people that I don't know anyone who has much trouble using it. Some existing problems include:

1. While there is one accessible Reddit client on IOS, the Reddit Enhancement suite isn't accessible, and there is nothing accessible for Android as far as I know. So finding an accessible way to add the functions of RES (tagging posters and filtering out websites are the two functions I wish for daily) would be useful.

2. Photo sharing on Facebook. Currently well over 90% of the facebook posts on my home newsfeed are images, and completely useless to me. Finding some way to make these more accessible, or creating an app that would hide them entirely, would make it much easier to keep up with my family and friends online. Could all photo posts be converted into text using data that already exists about the image? For example, "Joe posted a photo of himself with Bob and Alice taken in Time Square." Facebook already puts tags and geolocation data on photos, so that should be doable. Maybe use OCR to try and recover some of the images of text.

3. Pinterest is totally inaccessible. I don't know enough about this to even have any ideas for what, if anything, could be done about it.

4. An app that posts audio clips to Facebook the same way photos are posted to Facebook might be useful. A lot of blind people record audio of things for similar reasons that sighted people take photos. There are apps that allow you to post audio online, but as far as I know, none of them are as simple as just record and share. Also, none of them allow sighted friends to listen directly from the Facebook newsfeed, without any extra effort. An app like this would make it easier for me to share interesting things in my life with everyone on my friend list.

Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

Lots of people use the regular social medias.

Twitter is accessible, and has many client options.
Facebook works when you've set up the account and had some help or practice getting around. There are lots of VI groups in facebook.
Instagram is curious - quite a few VI people use that too. Because it's easy to take photos with VO, then just tell what's in the photo.
Quite a few blind people even use youtube, as i have their own channel.
Audioboom, soundcloud... There are sound options too.
Pinterest... Needs a picture on a page to pin it. But it could still be useful, e.g. For learning about a specific subject, provided the links have content that is accessible.
Then, like with everyone else, there are all the specialty websites and forums and whatnot.

Each site/service kind of needs to have its own need.
So... What functionality or need would it fit into, that cannot be catered with the current competition?
Can I use twitter or facebook to do the same?

As of now I think I have enough in the way of social media already. I primarily use Reddit and Twitter; occasionally I'll venture onto Facebook or Tumblr if I have time. At this stage I have neither the time nor the desire to engage in a new form of social media. In addition I think social media is supposed to be a way of engaging with people who have different experiences, I love the community here at /r/Blind, but I also love that people who aren't necessarily part of the blind/ visually impaired community who come into to take part in the discussion. In addition Reddit provides the platform for this community as well as a number of other communities I'm interested in from my local area to my academic interests. That's what makes it different. I wouldn't want to just get on a network of blind/ visually impaired individuals because it isolates the community from the broader global community, if that makes sense. As I said, the reason why I love /r/Blind is that it integrates this community into the broader Reddit community which makes this place so unique.

 

So in summary, I probably wouldn't use it personally. What I would suggest looking into is making systems that allow the blind and visually impaired to access existing social media more easily. There are a number of third party Reddit apps, maybe make one that is optimized for those who are blind and visually impaired. Something like that would be great, but like I said at this stage I wouldn't adopt a new social media platform solely for the blind.

So I think you need to more specifically defined your terms. I'm not really sure what your purpose here is. If you're asking if there needs to be a social network that provides full access for the Blind and visually impaired, then the answer is no. Multiple social networking platforms are already completely accessible. If you are approaching this from the social side, and are asking if the blind and visually impaired would like a site that provides interconnectivity between the various blind individuals and organisations across the world, then the answer is a bit more nuanced. Yes in theory this would be a good thing, but it comes with a few technical and a few social problems. On the technical side, you need to consider that at the moment the social networking Paradyne is predominantly visual. The idea of a "wall" or "feed" for instance is a relatively visual concept. You will need to approach the design of your platform from an entirely different perspective, and frankly I do not know how to help you with this. From the social side, you need to consider that such a social network would effectively function to isolate the blind community. It would be a good thing in some ways, but I'm not 100% sure that we should be encouraging our community to segregate itself in such a fashion. There's also the question of distribution. At the moment, most social networking functions as a result of people meeting each other in person, and then connecting online in order to stay in contact. If it is a blind only community though, such personal interactions will be significantly more rare. I am personally a blind traveller, and yet I must admit I need relatively few new blind people even worldwide. So, the question will be how are you to distribute this network and how are you to forge the connections between people who are unlikely to meet in person. It is most likely possible, especially if you draw on sites that already exist for the Blind, such as audio games forums, but it will require a new approach that has not yet been used.


In short, I do not know exactly what you're aiming for, and so cannot provide specific feedback. But those are my thoughts on the initial creation of a blind only social network.

I would not use a social network that was just for bind people but, I would probably use (and pay for) an app that let me (using voice only) easily post to social networks and in return read to me posts. Also having the ability to say, play more like this or play more from a certain user or group would also be great.

Good luck on your project.

I am the other student. We are waiting for your advice.