Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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What do totally blind software developers usually work on? (self.Blind)
submitted by Duriello
I love coding, it used to be both my profession and hobby before I went totally blind in 2014, and after 5 years of denial I finally found out that I could actually still code last year, so my first project since I resumed coding was an iOS game where people tap on colored 3D blocks to make combos of matching colors before the time runs out. I picked this game because I could generate all the assets, including the game's icon, procedurally, but unfortunately I would never be able to do it without assistance from the sighted for testing, and this is a problem because it makes me dependent, so my question is whether there is any kind of project on which totally blind people can work independently.
ErtaySh 8 points 3y ago
Blind developers usually work as backend engineers. However, if you are interested in game development, you should check out developing for Alexa. I recently started doing just that and it has been fun so far.
modulus 5 points 3y ago
Blind devs (like most devs) often work in teams, so having sighted devs take a look is not necessarily a problem.
That said, if you're unhappy with that situation, definitely backend tuff is much more possible to do independently. Compiler, OS, database stuff come to mind.
That said, if you're unhappy with that situation, definitely backend tuff is much more possible to do independently. Compiler, OS, database stuff come to mind.
Duriello [OP] 3 points 3y ago
I thought about compilers, as I had some ideas for a systems programming language, but then I learned about Rust, which is much better designed than anything I could ever come up with and manages to do one thing that I considered impossible: safe concurrency.
I also thought about writing a kernel for the Raspberry Pi, mainly in Rust, of course, but initially I would also need assistance from the sighted until I managed to boot something that I could read on a terminal on another machine.
To clarify I have no problem working with teams once a project grows enough to start including other developers, my problem is that I depend on others for things that, to me, should be part of my job. Linux didn't start with the horde of developers that it has today, it started with a single developer, because every big projects starts out small.
I also thought about writing a kernel for the Raspberry Pi, mainly in Rust, of course, but initially I would also need assistance from the sighted until I managed to boot something that I could read on a terminal on another machine.
To clarify I have no problem working with teams once a project grows enough to start including other developers, my problem is that I depend on others for things that, to me, should be part of my job. Linux didn't start with the horde of developers that it has today, it started with a single developer, because every big projects starts out small.
TheFake_VIP_yt 2 points 3y ago
Funnily enough, as a 17 year old with enough time on my hands to have a programming hobby, I actually love frontend work just as much as backend work. Placing and colouring everything numerically, or getting the UI framework to do it for me, is just as fun as some kind of complex maths equation in the background. I lean towards web dev, but also love to make native apps using WX Widgets and python, sometimes even GTK if I'm in a Linux mood.
Duriello [OP] 1 points 3y ago
That's only fun as long as you can see and fine-tune the results yourself.
TheFake_VIP_yt 1 points 3y ago
To an extent, yes. I can see just a little bit, which does help. But on the whole, especially with colour, you can get used to what goes with what over time regardless. There's obviously no guarantees you've designed anything half usable, but I've had relatively good success so far.
Envrin 2 points 3y ago
I developed $1 blind, so apparently it's possible to develop software blind. :)
Duriello [OP] 1 points 3y ago
I do code blind too, that's not the problem. The problem is testing graphical applications and ensuring that the software meets my quality standards.
bradley22 2 points 3y ago
You might want to ask this question on audiogames.net in the off topic room.
stormsong19 2 points 3y ago
I take issue with the idea that a color-based game is inherently inaccessible. There are many games which textually represent colored tiles while also providing the visual representation. Give a look to the iOS game Blindie Match https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blindie-match-accessible/id1186877409 for an example of one such.
stormsong19 2 points 3y ago
If making accessible games is particularly of interest to you, check out the genre of audiogames. Its a space that currently needs more innovation. Might be worth giving a look to what's already out there and then iderating on some of those concepts with your own ideas. Unfortunately it is a space that can have problems with unoriginality, so some more unique ideas wouldn't go amiss imo
meoverhere 2 points 3y ago
I am a sighted developer but I often really wish we had some developers and testers who are clues up both on development and reality of what we do, and also the need and importance of assistive tech, as well as knowing how to use it. Properly. Many of my colleagues do not consider a11y early enough, or they consider it but most-implement things.
I’m aware of some web developers in my part of the industry (education), who are entirely blind and use JAWS and NVDA for their day-to-day work. I don’t know the specifics of how they work though (sorry).
I wish you all the best!
I’m aware of some web developers in my part of the industry (education), who are entirely blind and use JAWS and NVDA for their day-to-day work. I don’t know the specifics of how they work though (sorry).
I wish you all the best!
mantolwen -2 points 3y ago
Hi, I'm a software tester. I don't know any blind developers. However, I do know a lot of sighted ones and they are very good at making software that's full of bugs. They are also dependent on me finding their bugs. So in that respect, you are no different than any other developer.
Duriello [OP] 6 points 3y ago
Yes, but as a developer I am supposed to weed out the most glaring bugs before sending it to testing, and as a blind developer I'm not able to do that in visual applications.
codeplaysleep 2 points 3y ago
>as a blind developer I'm not able to do that in visual applications.
It may be more of a challenge, but I wouldn't totally rule it out. I have some vision, but I still write a lot of acceptance tests in $1, just to make the testing workflow easier/faster. I'm sure other languages have similar tools.
I wouldn't want to 100% rely on this all the time, but it might allow you to more easily collaborate with a signed dev on something and not feel like you aren't pulling your weight.
It may be more of a challenge, but I wouldn't totally rule it out. I have some vision, but I still write a lot of acceptance tests in $1, just to make the testing workflow easier/faster. I'm sure other languages have similar tools.
I wouldn't want to 100% rely on this all the time, but it might allow you to more easily collaborate with a signed dev on something and not feel like you aren't pulling your weight.
Duriello [OP] 3 points 3y ago
That's helpful indeed! Xcode allows the creation of UI tests too, but I had never considered it before mostly due to ignorance, and I believe that I wasn't alone, because Xcode's UI tests leverage accessibility in order to do the testing, so considering the state of accessibility of most applications it's easy to conclude that almost nobody is using that tool.
mark5bald 1 points 3y ago
It sounds like using accessibility/automation frameworks is a good first step. What else would you expect from an accessible UI testing tool? Computer vision is being used to work around poor accessibility in a lot of different contexts (text in images and mobile apps come to mind, but I am sure there are others), I wonder if a computer vision based tool could fill in the gaps left by tools like Capybara.
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