Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Accessible code exploration tool (self.Blind)
submitted by researcher_developer
Hello,
I'm a researcher at a non profit research institute based in San Francisco, where we research and develop assistive technologies for people who are visually impaired or blind.Recently I have become interested in learning more about how blind programmers develop software, what kind of tools they use and what are the main obstacles at the moment. The most recent study I've found in literature is dated 2017, so I am wondering what it is like to develop with a visual impairment in 2019.I am also specifically interested in the particular activity of code navigation, i.e. poking around a code base to familiarize with it. Are there any specific tools that are accessible that make this activity more efficient than looking for keywords or scanning the files line by line with a screen reader? I know that Visual Studio Code is supposed to be very accessible and that there are many plugins available for it, but how accessible is it really?
I hope to get some insightful feedback and gather enough evidence to make a case to start a project to develop a free and open source code navigation tool optimized for screen readers.
Thanks!
I'm a researcher at a non profit research institute based in San Francisco, where we research and develop assistive technologies for people who are visually impaired or blind.Recently I have become interested in learning more about how blind programmers develop software, what kind of tools they use and what are the main obstacles at the moment. The most recent study I've found in literature is dated 2017, so I am wondering what it is like to develop with a visual impairment in 2019.I am also specifically interested in the particular activity of code navigation, i.e. poking around a code base to familiarize with it. Are there any specific tools that are accessible that make this activity more efficient than looking for keywords or scanning the files line by line with a screen reader? I know that Visual Studio Code is supposed to be very accessible and that there are many plugins available for it, but how accessible is it really?
I hope to get some insightful feedback and gather enough evidence to make a case to start a project to develop a free and open source code navigation tool optimized for screen readers.
Thanks!
CloudsOfMagellan 3 points 3y ago
An add on to emacs or vscode would be the best option or you'll end up with a tool that's good at code exploration and little else
Amonwilde 3 points 3y ago
Honestly even the state of accessible IDEs is pretty poor. Lot of blind people in visual studio, some on Notepad++, some on more of a UNIX/Emacs stack. The state of tooling is pretty poor and though there's room for a code exploration tool (think Python would be well received) work on editors would also be welcome.
AndAdapt 1 points 3y ago
Most of the blind coders I know are are using emacs or visual studio. I would personally make this tool work under emacs. I would love an intelligent way to explore code
My masters dissertation was on creating a library for audio plotting of data. It is something that had existed in research for a while but remained there. So I worked on creating a tool that people could actually get their hands on.
Happy to Chad, so feel free to message
My masters dissertation was on creating a library for audio plotting of data. It is something that had existed in research for a while but remained there. So I worked on creating a tool that people could actually get their hands on.
Happy to Chad, so feel free to message
sinabahram 1 points 3y ago
There has been A good amount of research in the space. There are research papers on structure based navigation, treating code like webpages and facilitating virtual cursor commands for jumping and navigating between methods and other control structures, the use of audio to present information, especially line annotations, in a multi modal way, and a lot more. There’s frankly too much to type up in a Reddit comment but I’d be happy to debrief with you and bring you up to speed a little bit by pointing you to some various resources.
I’ve also done considerable work on making drag and drop block based environments accessible as well as helping with the design and testing of quorum studio which is being released very shortly, which aims to be a 100% accessible IDE for the quorum programming language.
Do you work at Smith-Kettlewell, or somewhere else? there is a small community of researchers around the world that are looking at this problem so it would be good for you to get to know who those people are because it’s very frustrating to see work duplicated in the space.
Feel free to reach out and we can set up a call.
I’ve also done considerable work on making drag and drop block based environments accessible as well as helping with the design and testing of quorum studio which is being released very shortly, which aims to be a 100% accessible IDE for the quorum programming language.
Do you work at Smith-Kettlewell, or somewhere else? there is a small community of researchers around the world that are looking at this problem so it would be good for you to get to know who those people are because it’s very frustrating to see work duplicated in the space.
Feel free to reach out and we can set up a call.
researcher_developer [OP] 1 points 3y ago
Thank you for your answer.
I have reviewed some of the literature, and I'm sure there is much more than I have seen so far. What I am trying to understand is to what extent these methods that have been researched have made it into main stream professional coding tools and whether, from a HCI/usability point of view, there are still issues that need fixing or rethinking. The study published in ASSETS 2017 makes it look like there is plenty to be done, but in two years things might have changed?
I have reviewed some of the literature, and I'm sure there is much more than I have seen so far. What I am trying to understand is to what extent these methods that have been researched have made it into main stream professional coding tools and whether, from a HCI/usability point of view, there are still issues that need fixing or rethinking. The study published in ASSETS 2017 makes it look like there is plenty to be done, but in two years things might have changed?
sinabahram 1 points 3y ago
Plenty to be done.
Laser_Lens_4 1 points 3y ago
I've been trying to teach myself LaTeX to do math. Frankly the coding experience on Windows is piss-poor. I've gotten partial compatibility on notepad++ with nvda and that's about it. Emacs does run on Windows but it doesn't have Braille support with emacspeak so I guess that helps if you don't use a braille display. The built-in codewriter app is completely unusable. Popular stuff like Atom and Sublime also don't work. IDEs like Arduino and eclipse also don't work, or at least I've not been able to get them to work.
now I'm trying on a Mac and it's slightly less horrible. I can at least use terminal text editors and work in the command line without having to set anything up beforehand. I think it's possible to setup a Linux environment on Windows but I forget how to do it. The experience is extremely aggravating and rather insulting, considering that code is literally just text.
now I'm trying on a Mac and it's slightly less horrible. I can at least use terminal text editors and work in the command line without having to set anything up beforehand. I think it's possible to setup a Linux environment on Windows but I forget how to do it. The experience is extremely aggravating and rather insulting, considering that code is literally just text.
CloudsOfMagellan 1 points 3y ago
Install TDSR, it'll help with the terminal for the Mac
Textmate is also an accessible text editor and emacs with emacspeak will also work on macs
Textmate is also an accessible text editor and emacs with emacspeak will also work on macs
fbracing02 1 points 3y ago
I cant answer any of your questions but am very interested as I am beginning teach my self coding right now. I used to code infrequently before my vision was bad enough that reading monitors is too difficult. So this screen reader/other accessibility tools are a whole new world.
[deleted] 1 points 3y ago
[deleted]
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