Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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How do Blind people use Reddit? (self.Blind)
submitted by artificialpoints
I'm personally not blind, and I know there are lots of adaptations that make computing possible for the blind, but I'm curious how most blind people use reddit, navigate it, read the text, etc. I imagine there's a lot of text to speech involved (and/or speech to text) but I don't want to be too ignorant about my assumptions.
The reason I'm asking is because I've been pretty obsessed with Mr Robot recently and someone posted on the Mr Robot subreddit that they were blind and loving the show and asked for detail on a certain scene. Since then I've been messaging him back and forth a few times to help try and fill the gaps for him so he can better enjoy the show and understand what's going on when the audio isn't enough to fully explain what is happening. So I'd like to help him better if possible. It might be as simple as my messages just get read out to him, but if there are any annoyances with text to speech, like maybe quotation marks, excessive punctuation, symbols like [ ] { } etc, I'd be curious what the typical experience is for blind redditors.
Thanks and please excuse my ignorance
The reason I'm asking is because I've been pretty obsessed with Mr Robot recently and someone posted on the Mr Robot subreddit that they were blind and loving the show and asked for detail on a certain scene. Since then I've been messaging him back and forth a few times to help try and fill the gaps for him so he can better enjoy the show and understand what's going on when the audio isn't enough to fully explain what is happening. So I'd like to help him better if possible. It might be as simple as my messages just get read out to him, but if there are any annoyances with text to speech, like maybe quotation marks, excessive punctuation, symbols like [ ] { } etc, I'd be curious what the typical experience is for blind redditors.
Thanks and please excuse my ignorance
DreamingTheMelody 3 points 7y ago
Just to give you a different perspective:
Totally blind, but I use my laptop and occasionally my iPhone. It's to each their own, I suppose, but I personally don't like the idea of people catering to me just because I'm blind, you know? Generally if someone is going to gripe at you about using acronyms, it's just them being picky; it's not like any sort of text-to-speech has any problem with them. Sure, lol might be pronounced as "loll", but that doesn't change the meaning of the phrase any--we would all still know what it means. Similarly, :P is going to be read as colon P, but that doesn't mean that we don't know what it is (most of us, anyway).
I'm also a bit of a grammar nazi, so I normally have most punctuation enabled (in the 'how much punctuation do you want read aloud' setting), but if there are people that would rather not hear quotation marks, or brackets and such, they can turn that off; you don't have to be conscious of not using those things.
I realize that not everyone shares my opinion though, and that's absolutely fine! I just adore the fact that you even bother asking this kind of thing anyway. <3
P.S: We can't tell if something is WRITTEN LIKE THIS WHICH A CRAP TON OF PEOPLE USE ALL THE TIME. Heartbreaking for me, but I learn to deal. I had a friend who would start telling me every time he used caps, but it just made me feel like a pleb so I told him to stop lmao.
Totally blind, but I use my laptop and occasionally my iPhone. It's to each their own, I suppose, but I personally don't like the idea of people catering to me just because I'm blind, you know? Generally if someone is going to gripe at you about using acronyms, it's just them being picky; it's not like any sort of text-to-speech has any problem with them. Sure, lol might be pronounced as "loll", but that doesn't change the meaning of the phrase any--we would all still know what it means. Similarly, :P is going to be read as colon P, but that doesn't mean that we don't know what it is (most of us, anyway).
I'm also a bit of a grammar nazi, so I normally have most punctuation enabled (in the 'how much punctuation do you want read aloud' setting), but if there are people that would rather not hear quotation marks, or brackets and such, they can turn that off; you don't have to be conscious of not using those things.
I realize that not everyone shares my opinion though, and that's absolutely fine! I just adore the fact that you even bother asking this kind of thing anyway. <3
P.S: We can't tell if something is WRITTEN LIKE THIS WHICH A CRAP TON OF PEOPLE USE ALL THE TIME. Heartbreaking for me, but I learn to deal. I had a friend who would start telling me every time he used caps, but it just made me feel like a pleb so I told him to stop lmao.
Badassmotherfuckerer 2 points 7y ago
Hey! I'm learning to use jaws currently, and I'm having trouble navigating reddit, any tips?
DreamingTheMelody 1 points 6y ago
Of course! Sorry that I'm just now getting back to you.
The great thing about reddit is that it's generally pretty accessible with jaws. The only thing that I've found any sort of problem with is the spoiler tags (if you know what I'm talking about). Apparently, if someone were to put something in spoiler text, a sighted person wouldn't be able to read unless they mouse over it. However, with jaws, it will just automatically read out the text as you arrow down.
Aside from that though, it's pretty user friendly. Depending on the version of jaws you use, these commands might work for you. If not though, just let me know, and I can dig up previous keyboard commands for previous versions for you.
The main content of reddit (like the messages in your inbox, the posts on your front page, the actual stuff once you click on a post itself), is typically found in the region area. To quickly jump to that, you can hit q to take you to the main region. However, r will take you to any region, so you can use that as well.
Due to the fact that each comment is proceeded by the upvote and downvote buttons, you can use b to quickly jump you around; that's the letter that jumps you to all of the buttons on a webpage. Also, e will take you to any edit fields on the page, so if you want to quickly jump to a comment box on a reddit post, hitting E three times from the top of the page should get you there.
That's the main things I keep in mind while navigating reddit, but I'm sure that you will find other shortcuts the longer you use jaws and find what works for you. I have a friend that will just hit B a bunch of times from the top of the page and use that to jump him to the upvote and downvotes above the post, while I hit Q and then arrow from there. It's completely up to you what you find to be the most beneficial.
Other things that might help though:
insert+f7 will bring up a list of links that you can click on.
L will jump you to the next list on the page. For example, when people make lists in reddit comments/posts, or even the text that is next to the comment (reply, delete, jump to parent, etc etc).
I'm not sure if you're transitioning to jaws from a different software, or if you're dealing with vision loss, but if it's the latter, just give yourself a bit of an opportunity to just go through a reddit page with only voice. If you're sighted (or were), it will make a difference, because things aren't going to be read the same way that you'd see them. I.E: things won't be right or left of each other, there won't be columns, so on and so forth. Just get used to how things show up, and learn to navigate from there.
I hope that all of this helps! And of course if you have any other questions or need more help in general, please let me know! I love to help.
P.S: The thing for sorting comments is above the comment edit field. It doesn't say anything about a link, but you can still click on the type of sorting, and new text will come up under that.
The great thing about reddit is that it's generally pretty accessible with jaws. The only thing that I've found any sort of problem with is the spoiler tags (if you know what I'm talking about). Apparently, if someone were to put something in spoiler text, a sighted person wouldn't be able to read unless they mouse over it. However, with jaws, it will just automatically read out the text as you arrow down.
Aside from that though, it's pretty user friendly. Depending on the version of jaws you use, these commands might work for you. If not though, just let me know, and I can dig up previous keyboard commands for previous versions for you.
The main content of reddit (like the messages in your inbox, the posts on your front page, the actual stuff once you click on a post itself), is typically found in the region area. To quickly jump to that, you can hit q to take you to the main region. However, r will take you to any region, so you can use that as well.
Due to the fact that each comment is proceeded by the upvote and downvote buttons, you can use b to quickly jump you around; that's the letter that jumps you to all of the buttons on a webpage. Also, e will take you to any edit fields on the page, so if you want to quickly jump to a comment box on a reddit post, hitting E three times from the top of the page should get you there.
That's the main things I keep in mind while navigating reddit, but I'm sure that you will find other shortcuts the longer you use jaws and find what works for you. I have a friend that will just hit B a bunch of times from the top of the page and use that to jump him to the upvote and downvotes above the post, while I hit Q and then arrow from there. It's completely up to you what you find to be the most beneficial.
Other things that might help though:
insert+f7 will bring up a list of links that you can click on.
L will jump you to the next list on the page. For example, when people make lists in reddit comments/posts, or even the text that is next to the comment (reply, delete, jump to parent, etc etc).
I'm not sure if you're transitioning to jaws from a different software, or if you're dealing with vision loss, but if it's the latter, just give yourself a bit of an opportunity to just go through a reddit page with only voice. If you're sighted (or were), it will make a difference, because things aren't going to be read the same way that you'd see them. I.E: things won't be right or left of each other, there won't be columns, so on and so forth. Just get used to how things show up, and learn to navigate from there.
I hope that all of this helps! And of course if you have any other questions or need more help in general, please let me know! I love to help.
P.S: The thing for sorting comments is above the comment edit field. It doesn't say anything about a link, but you can still click on the type of sorting, and new text will come up under that.
Badassmotherfuckerer 2 points 6y ago
Wow, that was a really comprehensive guide, thanks a lot!
I became visually impaired around a year ago and have been getting back into redd using various zoom software since then, but I'm in the process of learning jaws now.
Thanks a lot!
I became visually impaired around a year ago and have been getting back into redd using various zoom software since then, but I'm in the process of learning jaws now.
Thanks a lot!
fastfinge 2 points 7y ago
I'm using $1 myself on a Windows 10 laptop. As for writing style, just don't worry about it. Any screen-reader will let the user adjust what punctuation it reads, how it pronounces words, etc.
KulkulkanX 2 points 7y ago
I'm only low vision due to diabetic retinopathy. I am relatively active poster in various subreddits, and have been asked about how I use reddit fairly often, so I take no offense to your inquiry. I primarily use an Amazon Fire Tablet with the VoiceView text to speech engine. This repeats words and letters as I type, and the default voice is rather pleasant. The app I use to access is RedditisFun, which allows me to have light text on a black background to enhance readibily. I can also magnify the text by tripple tapping the screen. When I use my Windows laptop, I use Zoomtext which magnifies the screen (3x for me), inverts brightness (which makes photos and videos look like photo negatives though this can be turned off, and reads text.
artificialpoints [OP] 1 points 7y ago
Thanks everyone for your replies, it has helped give me a little bit of perspective on how things work for you guys. I'm just glad that there are plenty of systems, apps, etc in place for pretty much any type of impairment, physical, visual, or otherwise. I can't imagine losing access to computers and the internet due to a disability, making it harder is bad enough!
Marconius 1 points 7y ago
I use voiceover on an iPhone 5S running iOS 9.3.4. I primarily use the BaconReader app for Reddit, and occasionally use the Reddit app itself for long threads of comments.
Just right things normally, the screen reader doesn't directly read punctuation unless you navigate to it character by character. Screen readers also describe Emojis. I generally type messages using dictation, or touch typing through the on-screen keyboard when I'm not in a position to dictate, or a Bluetooth keyboard or my Vario ultra 40 braille display.
Just right things normally, the screen reader doesn't directly read punctuation unless you navigate to it character by character. Screen readers also describe Emojis. I generally type messages using dictation, or touch typing through the on-screen keyboard when I'm not in a position to dictate, or a Bluetooth keyboard or my Vario ultra 40 braille display.
romanj35 1 points 7y ago
Depends on the person. I have an android phone and tablet, and an Ipad, so I use both for reddit, specifically reddit apps.
I know some people use pc and honestly every one/system is going to have its ups and downs.
I'd say to you just type everything out fully, no wtf's, no lols, and other abbreviations. I wouldn't put any elipses, or the three or multiple dots.
The Reddit staff is great for blind users, I sent them an email and they removed the capcha requirement, I think most of the reddit/blind community knows about that.
But all in all, we all pretty much navigate by preferred methods. Mine is through an app.
I know some people use pc and honestly every one/system is going to have its ups and downs.
I'd say to you just type everything out fully, no wtf's, no lols, and other abbreviations. I wouldn't put any elipses, or the three or multiple dots.
The Reddit staff is great for blind users, I sent them an email and they removed the capcha requirement, I think most of the reddit/blind community knows about that.
But all in all, we all pretty much navigate by preferred methods. Mine is through an app.
Vaelian 1 points 7y ago
I find it painful to type on phones and tablets blind due to having to hear and confirm every keystroke. How can you possibly live with that without wasting a lot of time typing? The physical keyboard is so much faster!
romanj35 1 points 6y ago
You're completely correct, especially since I'm an author.
I do use the voice-to-text microphone on the virtual keyboard often. But for writing very long things, reddit post and replies for example, I use a bluetooth physical keyboard. Every device that's mobile I have has a paired bluetooth keyboard for it. Some of them use batteries, some a micro usb cord.
I do use the voice-to-text microphone on the virtual keyboard often. But for writing very long things, reddit post and replies for example, I use a bluetooth physical keyboard. Every device that's mobile I have has a paired bluetooth keyboard for it. Some of them use batteries, some a micro usb cord.
Marconius 1 points 7y ago
Dictation works perfectly for me for the most part, and it includes punctuation and basic text editing functions in your stream of text while talking. It sometimes require some editing, especially when it comes to making the wrong decisions with homonyms, and yes a physical keyboard is much faster, but dictation is a primary mode of typing on the phone when blind. In my experience so far, VoiceOver dictation is vastly superior to Google talk back.
artificialpoints [OP] 1 points 7y ago
Yeah I figured it was through lots of various methods, but just little stuff like skipping acronyms and ellipses helps. I'm more the type to type out those types of acronyms anyways so that works out haha. And speaking of which I could see how haha probably is better than lol, and emoticons like :P probably don't work so well haha
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