Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Human Screen Reader Service (self.Blind)
submitted by branmcf
While browsing the web for the past few days I've come across a fairly sizable collection of videos and literature suggesting that screen readers provide a terrible user experience.
What I have not been able to find is evidence of a service where sighted people can be human screen readers for people who are blind or visually impaired. Does anyone know if such a service exists? If it doesn't, do you think it should?
What I have not been able to find is evidence of a service where sighted people can be human screen readers for people who are blind or visually impaired. Does anyone know if such a service exists? If it doesn't, do you think it should?
Vaelian 2 points 7y ago
Yes, screen-readers provide an awful user experience compared to the visual user experience even when all the accessibility concerns are considered in websites and applications, but that's all we have, and having a screen-reader with a cursor that I can move around with the keyboard and a voice that doesn't get tired of repeating stuff is much better than a human describing the contents of the screen.
It is precisely because the user experience with a screen-reader is so bad that I haven't returned to coding even two years after going blind. Screen-readers turn what used to be a pleasant task into something extremely painful.
The awful user experience is not unique to screen-readers, however. Pretty much everything is non-trivial when you're blind. Blindness is a huge downgrade to quality of life in general; even though there are workarounds for many things, those workarounds suck all the fun of doing stuff because they aren't even close to being as efficient as the straightforward way of doing things with sight.
It is precisely because the user experience with a screen-reader is so bad that I haven't returned to coding even two years after going blind. Screen-readers turn what used to be a pleasant task into something extremely painful.
The awful user experience is not unique to screen-readers, however. Pretty much everything is non-trivial when you're blind. Blindness is a huge downgrade to quality of life in general; even though there are workarounds for many things, those workarounds suck all the fun of doing stuff because they aren't even close to being as efficient as the straightforward way of doing things with sight.
SideshowKaz 1 points 7y ago
You hit the nail on the head with blindness being a downgrade in quality of life.
fastfinge 2 points 7y ago
As someone who is fully blind, I wouldn't use this sort of service. Most articles complaining about how horrible screen-readers are were written by sighted folks who don't use them full time, or by newly blind folks who aren't yet comfortable using them. That isn't to say screen-readers don't have serious problems; they really do! I would guess I'm about half as fast at almost every online task than a sighted person doing the same thing. But I don't think having a sighted person assist me would make me any faster. When a sighted person wants to do something, they just glance at the screen, and click. Even with a "human screen-reader", I'd still have to communicate what I want to do, and then the sighted person would need to describe the result of the action. Plus, once another sighted person is involved, I have to give up all privacy. I would never use a "human screen-reader" to look up medical conditions, for example. Even if my screen-reader is slower, I'd rather use it, because it gives me the freedom to research whatever I want in complete privacy. The real solution is to train programmers to design websites and applications with accessibility in mind. That way, instead of depending on sighted folks, we can take control of our own lives.
branmcf [OP] 1 points 7y ago
I think the point you make about privacy is an important one. Maybe a better solution is just a more intuitive screen reader.
Imagine if the elements and functionality of a website were described in a more human-friendly way, so interfacing with a website was as easy as having a conversation. Would an application of that sort have appeal to you?
Imagine if the elements and functionality of a website were described in a more human-friendly way, so interfacing with a website was as easy as having a conversation. Would an application of that sort have appeal to you?
fastfinge 2 points 7y ago
Well, I think we're already heading slowly in that direction. Things like ARIA landmarks already describe parts of websites as "article content", "search", "header", etc. I remember the days when I used to need to understand what things like divs were for, because screen-readers offered commands to navigate the tag structure of the page, rather than the human layout. Also, CSS is slowly moving us away from things like layout by table, using font tags, and so on. These days, I can move through a page by landmark and heading, and not worry so much about how the site is formatted visually. And that's a big help. Heck, even tags like italics and bold have been replaced with tags like strong and emphasis.
When you say "easy as having a conversation", that makes me worry about privacy, again. I don't want to talk to my computer! I can touch type, and I'd much rather do that; I don't even use things like OK Google myself, because I don't want random people on the bus with me to know who I'm calling, what I'm looking up, and so on. As things stand, I can pres h to skip to the next heading, e for the next edit field, b for the next button, and so-on. I think this is a system that works; the improvements we need are to make sure that everything on a website that is visually intended as a heading is marked up as a heading, and that things that aren't headings never get marked up as headings. For example, on Reddit, the title of every submission on my front page should really be a heading; that would seem to make logical sense. As it is, I instead need to remember to press "b" to get to the next upvote button when I want to skip an article. Once I've learned that, it's fine. But right now, every knew sight I ever visit has little flaws like that, and little tricks I need to learn to get around it quickly. And that's what slows me down. If everything was coded correctly, the system we've got would work fine. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. And I can't think of any knew "conversational" system you could introduce that would work any better, because not every website author is going to write websites to work propperly with it.
When you say "easy as having a conversation", that makes me worry about privacy, again. I don't want to talk to my computer! I can touch type, and I'd much rather do that; I don't even use things like OK Google myself, because I don't want random people on the bus with me to know who I'm calling, what I'm looking up, and so on. As things stand, I can pres h to skip to the next heading, e for the next edit field, b for the next button, and so-on. I think this is a system that works; the improvements we need are to make sure that everything on a website that is visually intended as a heading is marked up as a heading, and that things that aren't headings never get marked up as headings. For example, on Reddit, the title of every submission on my front page should really be a heading; that would seem to make logical sense. As it is, I instead need to remember to press "b" to get to the next upvote button when I want to skip an article. Once I've learned that, it's fine. But right now, every knew sight I ever visit has little flaws like that, and little tricks I need to learn to get around it quickly. And that's what slows me down. If everything was coded correctly, the system we've got would work fine. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. And I can't think of any knew "conversational" system you could introduce that would work any better, because not every website author is going to write websites to work propperly with it.
RockPaperAwesome 1 points 7y ago
I work with low vision patients and also am an awesome story reader (just ask my kids) I would be happy to volunteer my time if you find any resources.
branmcf [OP] 1 points 7y ago
Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately I haven't come across anything that resembles a human screen reader service yet.
The technologies needed to facilitate such a service are readily available (TeamViewer + Skype could provide an interesting proof of concept) and I, too, would like to read for such a service.
I'm just trying to figure out if the need is an actual one rather than one imagined by me. Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated :)
The technologies needed to facilitate such a service are readily available (TeamViewer + Skype could provide an interesting proof of concept) and I, too, would like to read for such a service.
I'm just trying to figure out if the need is an actual one rather than one imagined by me. Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated :)
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