Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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What are experiences or in-jokes about being blind that well-meaning sighted people likely don't know? (self.Blind)
submitted by saizai
I'm designing a survey to test how people react to my $1, to see how it compares to other interventions and disability simulations meant for sighted people.
This should ask about a variety of real life situations that I don't cover in the talk and that sighted people will be very unlikely to have a prepared answer for.
I want this to get the *wrong* answer from a sighted person who has unrealistic beliefs for *or* against blind people, or what it's like to navigate while blind, and the *right* answer from a sighted person who is able to accurately imagine what it's like (regardless of their attitudes).
E.g. I'm thinking questions like "how difficult would X be for a blind person" or "if you see a blind person doing X, does that mean that they may be disoriented".
This should cover both directions of errors / misconceptions.
On the false positive side, there are myths (e.g. that walking into a wall or not taking the most direct path is bad).
On the false negative side, there are things that sighted people with inaccurate empathy would be unlikely to think of (e.g. that phone booths and branches are a thing we walk into pretty regularly, construction work is a major annoyance, and the last section of travel to a new location is often difficult, e.g. locating the right door).
So, any ideas?
​
ETA: Please consider the false negatives especially - things that *are* a problem that sighted people would not realize is even there, or that they think you can do but actually can't. The point of this is to detect when someone is trying to give a "politically correct" answer, but they have a mistaken belief (e.g. thinking we're all like Daredevil) that makes that answer wrong.
This should ask about a variety of real life situations that I don't cover in the talk and that sighted people will be very unlikely to have a prepared answer for.
I want this to get the *wrong* answer from a sighted person who has unrealistic beliefs for *or* against blind people, or what it's like to navigate while blind, and the *right* answer from a sighted person who is able to accurately imagine what it's like (regardless of their attitudes).
E.g. I'm thinking questions like "how difficult would X be for a blind person" or "if you see a blind person doing X, does that mean that they may be disoriented".
This should cover both directions of errors / misconceptions.
On the false positive side, there are myths (e.g. that walking into a wall or not taking the most direct path is bad).
On the false negative side, there are things that sighted people with inaccurate empathy would be unlikely to think of (e.g. that phone booths and branches are a thing we walk into pretty regularly, construction work is a major annoyance, and the last section of travel to a new location is often difficult, e.g. locating the right door).
So, any ideas?
​
ETA: Please consider the false negatives especially - things that *are* a problem that sighted people would not realize is even there, or that they think you can do but actually can't. The point of this is to detect when someone is trying to give a "politically correct" answer, but they have a mistaken belief (e.g. thinking we're all like Daredevil) that makes that answer wrong.
GoBlindOrGoHome 14 points 4y ago
Parking lots are hell on earth for me. A big, wide open area, with absolutely no sidewalks, where everyone abandons their shopping carts. Also where I encounter the worst drivers.
Also don't honk at me if I'm in the crosswalk. I know where the crosswalk is, and I know you weren't there when I started crossing. Look at my stick and leave me alone.
Also don't honk at me if I'm in the crosswalk. I know where the crosswalk is, and I know you weren't there when I started crossing. Look at my stick and leave me alone.
Vicorin 11 points 4y ago
Real big on the most direct route thing. All the time I’ll be walking somewhere, taking the route I normally will, and somebody will try to tell me the door is further left. I know it’s further left, I go in and out of this building every day Monday through Friday. I’m following landmarks and not getting in people’s way.
I also hate wet floor signs. There has been only 1 time I hit a wet floor sign with my cane and it didn’t fall over, and I was shocked and impressed. Thy’re so loud every single time.
And that me hitting somebody’s foot or a chair or something with my cane isn’t a bad thing.
I think a big one too is assuming when I’m lost. If I’m walking even somewhat confidently, I don’t need you to walk me to class or ask if I need help. If I’m lost, I’ll be hovering around the same spot looking confused as hell and probably stopping you to ask for directions.
I also hate wet floor signs. There has been only 1 time I hit a wet floor sign with my cane and it didn’t fall over, and I was shocked and impressed. Thy’re so loud every single time.
And that me hitting somebody’s foot or a chair or something with my cane isn’t a bad thing.
I think a big one too is assuming when I’m lost. If I’m walking even somewhat confidently, I don’t need you to walk me to class or ask if I need help. If I’m lost, I’ll be hovering around the same spot looking confused as hell and probably stopping you to ask for directions.
[deleted] 5 points 4y ago
[deleted]
cae_jones 5 points 4y ago
A month or so ago, I actually managed to slip while barefoot on a wet floor. I was too busy being surprised at discovering that this actchually happens to be hurt. Mostly, wet floor signs seem to exist to force me to lose 3-10 seconds picking the thing up after it crumbles at the slightest impact. I kinda wonder if, had blind people spawned more English idioms, we would say "crumpled like a wet floor sign" rather than "crumpled like a wet paper bag".
saizai [OP] 1 points 4y ago
I like that idiom. :)
Any others, while we're at it?
"Springy like a fiberglass cane"?
Any others, while we're at it?
"Springy like a fiberglass cane"?
Myntrith 2 points 4y ago
> And that me hitting somebody’s foot or a chair or something with my cane isn’t a bad thing.
This type of thing was a tough one for me when taking care of my mom. She would do something (accidentally) that, for a sighted person, I would be like, WTF? But she was blind. And I had to be patient. Sometimes I had to force that patience, because I would still be frustrated, but I knew I couldn't say anything, because I knew it wasn't her fault.
She would sense my frustration in my voice, and she would feel bad and self-conscious, and I didn't want her to feel that way. Sometimes it became a negative feedback loop. My frustration became her self-consciousness which became my guilt which fed into her self-consciousness, etc.
This type of thing was a tough one for me when taking care of my mom. She would do something (accidentally) that, for a sighted person, I would be like, WTF? But she was blind. And I had to be patient. Sometimes I had to force that patience, because I would still be frustrated, but I knew I couldn't say anything, because I knew it wasn't her fault.
She would sense my frustration in my voice, and she would feel bad and self-conscious, and I didn't want her to feel that way. Sometimes it became a negative feedback loop. My frustration became her self-consciousness which became my guilt which fed into her self-consciousness, etc.
singwhatyoucantsay 9 points 4y ago
Don't gesture for me to go forward at a crosswalk--I can barely see you in your car, let alone you motioning for me to go ahead.
cae_jones 3 points 4y ago
There's sort of an all-or-nothing perception I've noticed where technology is concerned. Sighted people seem to think either that we can't use computers at all, or we can use and read everything, including blurry screenshots or scans, CAPCHAs, etc. I've twice told website supports that I can't get past a CAPCHA because I'm blind (I used the words "I'M blind"), and was told to just load a different image.
(I still do not understand the screenshots of text thing. What software feature made that so prevalent compared to copy-and-paste in the first place?)
It's kinda hard to think of false negatives, really, other than what you listed such as signs and branches. I suppose there are things like knowing when someone's talking to you, instead of just in your general direction (this is especially troublesome if they're on a phone, since then there might not be anyone else around they could plausibly be talking to), dealing with noisy environments where all the useful sounds are being drowned, or the thing where proper cane use makes it almost mandatory to walk in single file (and holycrap is finding the back of lines not troublesome when they aren't effectively organized). I've been kinda bothered when guided before, even when I felt like it was welcome in general, just because of how many times the person would, presumably unintentionally, basically grab my hand with their elbow, such that I couldn't non-rudely pull it back far enough to not be caught in a tight space between an arm and a breast. Also dropping tiny things is horrible. Nuts, cereal, chocolate chips, bits of those Granola bars that fall off the instant you open the package (usually chocolate chips or nuts); 2 seconds by sight, possibly minutes by touch if they tumbled and bounced sufficiently, or you were moving at the time.
The other direction is more common and more stressful, generally. It's OK for the cane to hit non-fragile furniture; that is its whole purpose. You vastly overestimate how likely walking in the gutter is to result in getting hit by a car (what with most cars not driving in the gutter). If I made it to within half a block of the destination, and am asking for directions, perhaps consider that I didn't just magically appear in front of you so as to be rescued by the hand, and did, in fact, make it the entire rest of the journey single-handed. No, I don't need a wheelchair, or a ride in a stranger's car. My legs are not the part that's broken. Stairs are not comparable to interstates in terms of fear-factor. Moving furniture around is less big a deal than reorganizing my kitchen (do not reorganize my kitchen, and the bedroom is right out).
Some things like this—but mostly inside jokes—come up on the Twitter / Facebook feeds of "The Blind Onion" (@blonion). They've been inactive for a while, but there's a vast archive to pick from. A lot of it is cultural tropes or references to companies and organizations, but there are some gems in there, also.
(Which reminds me: cost. I was shocked when I discovered that printers go for about the price of a new cane, two or three orders of magnitude cheaper than embossers. Same difference for books, slates styli and Perkins Braillers compared to pen and paper, tactile graphics, etc. And books. I'd rather read more in Braille than audio, but it's just plain impractical most of the time - either price, availability, or the Braille version taking up multiple shelves, and no refreshable Braille device comes anywhere close to a Kindle in terms of experience (might as well try reading a novel on a 1990s calculator). Add to that the inability of these products to take advantage of mass production, the reliance on government assistance distorting the market, the way that innovations vary in terms of both quality and speed depending on how involved blind people are and how much funding there is, etc. There's no good reason Braille couldn't have been invented 5,000 years ago, but it's actually younger than the USA, and UEB-only education is rendering the overwhelming majority of Braille books needlessly confusing for new readers, for all that it's better for Twitter and programming. If not for TTS and GPS, I'd question whether blindtech is out of the 19th century.)
(I still do not understand the screenshots of text thing. What software feature made that so prevalent compared to copy-and-paste in the first place?)
It's kinda hard to think of false negatives, really, other than what you listed such as signs and branches. I suppose there are things like knowing when someone's talking to you, instead of just in your general direction (this is especially troublesome if they're on a phone, since then there might not be anyone else around they could plausibly be talking to), dealing with noisy environments where all the useful sounds are being drowned, or the thing where proper cane use makes it almost mandatory to walk in single file (and holycrap is finding the back of lines not troublesome when they aren't effectively organized). I've been kinda bothered when guided before, even when I felt like it was welcome in general, just because of how many times the person would, presumably unintentionally, basically grab my hand with their elbow, such that I couldn't non-rudely pull it back far enough to not be caught in a tight space between an arm and a breast. Also dropping tiny things is horrible. Nuts, cereal, chocolate chips, bits of those Granola bars that fall off the instant you open the package (usually chocolate chips or nuts); 2 seconds by sight, possibly minutes by touch if they tumbled and bounced sufficiently, or you were moving at the time.
The other direction is more common and more stressful, generally. It's OK for the cane to hit non-fragile furniture; that is its whole purpose. You vastly overestimate how likely walking in the gutter is to result in getting hit by a car (what with most cars not driving in the gutter). If I made it to within half a block of the destination, and am asking for directions, perhaps consider that I didn't just magically appear in front of you so as to be rescued by the hand, and did, in fact, make it the entire rest of the journey single-handed. No, I don't need a wheelchair, or a ride in a stranger's car. My legs are not the part that's broken. Stairs are not comparable to interstates in terms of fear-factor. Moving furniture around is less big a deal than reorganizing my kitchen (do not reorganize my kitchen, and the bedroom is right out).
Some things like this—but mostly inside jokes—come up on the Twitter / Facebook feeds of "The Blind Onion" (@blonion). They've been inactive for a while, but there's a vast archive to pick from. A lot of it is cultural tropes or references to companies and organizations, but there are some gems in there, also.
(Which reminds me: cost. I was shocked when I discovered that printers go for about the price of a new cane, two or three orders of magnitude cheaper than embossers. Same difference for books, slates styli and Perkins Braillers compared to pen and paper, tactile graphics, etc. And books. I'd rather read more in Braille than audio, but it's just plain impractical most of the time - either price, availability, or the Braille version taking up multiple shelves, and no refreshable Braille device comes anywhere close to a Kindle in terms of experience (might as well try reading a novel on a 1990s calculator). Add to that the inability of these products to take advantage of mass production, the reliance on government assistance distorting the market, the way that innovations vary in terms of both quality and speed depending on how involved blind people are and how much funding there is, etc. There's no good reason Braille couldn't have been invented 5,000 years ago, but it's actually younger than the USA, and UEB-only education is rendering the overwhelming majority of Braille books needlessly confusing for new readers, for all that it's better for Twitter and programming. If not for TTS and GPS, I'd question whether blindtech is out of the 19th century.)
saizai [OP] 1 points 4y ago
FWIW, looks like $1 is active again.
saizai [OP] 1 points 4y ago
The problem I have is that I need the survey to distinguish between "sighted person trying to give the nice answer" and "sighted person who actually understands what it's like", in a quantifiable way.
Most of the things we complain about are ones that people would realize are ones they should say they don't or wouldn't do, or that they think probably are problems for us - at least, when asked about it and filling out a form. E.g. nobody's going to say on a form that grabbing someone on the arm is a good thing, though of course we experience that all the time.
I can only catch that kind of over-correction by having the questions go both ways, or if it gets at things that a sighted person actively trying to empathize in a nice way, without actually understanding, simply would never realize (and would answer the opposite way).
It could also have things that are actually just kinda neutral, but that sighted people are likely to think are easy *or* hard.
Most of the things we complain about are ones that people would realize are ones they should say they don't or wouldn't do, or that they think probably are problems for us - at least, when asked about it and filling out a form. E.g. nobody's going to say on a form that grabbing someone on the arm is a good thing, though of course we experience that all the time.
I can only catch that kind of over-correction by having the questions go both ways, or if it gets at things that a sighted person actively trying to empathize in a nice way, without actually understanding, simply would never realize (and would answer the opposite way).
It could also have things that are actually just kinda neutral, but that sighted people are likely to think are easy *or* hard.
saizai [OP] 2 points 4y ago
ETA: Please consider the false negatives especially - things that *are* a problem that sighted people would not realize is even there, or that they think you can do but actually can't (or is very difficult). The point of this is to detect when someone is trying to give a "politically correct" answer, but they have a mistaken belief (e.g. thinking we're all like Daredevil) that makes that answer wrong.
laconicflow 3 points 4y ago
The funny part is that sighted people usually think I can't do something I can, and think I can do something I can't.
saizai [OP] 1 points 4y ago
I resemble that. :)
enzwificritic 1 points 4y ago
well sited people think i can see them.
saizai [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Indeed, but someone answering a survey and trying to "look good" isn't going to say that. :P
SunnyLego 1 points 4y ago
I live on a street with tons of cafes, and have been snarled/growled at by dogs several times, that people have let lay across whole pavement outside cafe, and as I can't see them there, I unintentionally touch them with my cane.
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