"Cover your right eye completely, now look down this mcdonalds straw and squint real hard with your left"

Its not exact but it gets the job done.

Also yes I literally have a McDonald's straw in my purse for this exact maneuver

I guess I have it easy, in that I have basically no sight at all. I say basically because there's some question that I can see a tiny purple glow on the bottom right but it's not even enough to tell if it's dark outside so I just tend to say none. That's easy enough. What it does mean is that you then move on to what I do see, which I describe as like the pulsating red and green patterns you get when you rub your eyes too hard. Er, don't do that just to find out. So even with almost nothing there's a bunch of complexity.

had a friend, who ended up with 5 or 10% vision in her late teens and she explained it like watching the world thought the static tv screen (we call it snow where I'm from) but I don't know if modern tv's have static screens like that anymore, so she might have to figure out something new.

I have 65% vision so I'm not blind just V.I. but I can't move my eyes which confuse a lot of "normal" sighted people, I explain it as invisible blinders

I describe it as being similar to having your eyes full of tears. Everything blends together into some kinda smudge but can still make out basic shapes. (If they're not too small) Though, I can still use my phone when it's close to my face. Honestly, I've given up on exact descriptions, I need like an edited image or something to carry around and show people lmao

No matter how hard you try to explain it, they will never get it.

So I've just started telling people to put on the strongest magnification reading glasses they can find, and imagine seeing the world like that, only WORSE, and still being able to read some things if you put the paper to your nose.

I used to say it was like the frosted glass. Like trying to feel the shape of a wax thing after its been melted, deformed, and lost.

Mine's really complex because my blindness also exacerbated my colorblindness, plus I have visual hallucinations because my eyes really couldn't pick a struggle.

I describe it as a constant layer of pink and blue static, with a big grey spot in the center and other random spots for spice, plus vasoline on the lens and random faces, eyes, and shadow folks popping in and out of existance for the funsies.

I cup my hands around my face to show them visual field basically ook down a pringles tube.

"You know how there's SD and HD TV? Well, I'm stuck back in the 70s with analog. Also, bright light = too painful to keep eyes open".

Depends on the context of the conversation as to how detailed I'll go, and if I even want to be having the conversation in the first place.

Was going to say have a picture of what vision for someone with your condition is like, lots of them on Google comparing to 20/20 vision. I find it the easiest when people keep presuming her glasses fix my childs vision

Check out the app Via Optasimulator from Novartis. It shows what things look like with a few common eye diseases through your camera. It might help explain some things.

Someone once told me this about what Retinitis Pigmentosa is like and ice used it ever since. It’s like poking holes in wax paper and looking through. My peripheral isn’t “black” as I can kinda sense light sources (or lack thereof) on the sides. RP can also leads people with cataracts but as I say, they aren’t like the ones people get with age, which is like how paper yellows with age, rather it is like fog on a windshield.

I also say it is super dependent on the location and situation. Places I know that are well lit and not cluttered I can manage in super well, but unfamiliar or super cluttered or busy places areas not so much. When I am anxious or stressed my vision gets worse. Oh and the adapting between light and dark is much slower than those with normal vision so it takes me longer to adjust walking into a movie theater for example. Oh the joys of complicated vision!

There are some apps that can simulate different types of vision loss. I also carry a card that has windows that you can look out of that simulates tunnel vision and a few other types of vision loss.

$1

It's like an eye booger, but in the middle of your vision and you can't get rid of it.

Not for me yet as I'm in the early stages, but I've worked out the best way to explain Retinitis Pigmentosa to others (and myself) is to explain it in Photographic terms (that's right, I, knowingly diagnosed with RP, decided Photography was the field for me).

It usually goes something like "oh the average person's peripheral vision goes to about their ears" as a preface (let person getting this explanation do some hand waving to test that)

And then I go on to explain that tunnel vision (in the case of my family) doesn't work like looking down a tube, there is no 'void' (the tube walls), it's more like if your entire field of vision is that bit at the end of the tunnel.

However, like a image or video that's been zoomed in on, the quality of the image seen isn't any better, it remains exactly the same "pixels" as it would if that little piece was still part of the bigger picture, so as the field of vision reduces, so does the quality of the image.

It usually works better to explain verbally, but hopefully you get the gist!

I have low vision but can still see pretty damn well. So I have the opposite problem where people think I'm fully sighted and have to work down from there. Color blindness is the easiest, "yes, blue, green and purple all look the same."
I have macular edema which is a struggle to explain, this is what I like to tell people "you know those movie scenes in older films from like the 1940s and 50s where they zoom in and it's a romantic moment between the man and woman and there's a gentle fuzziness/softness? That's kinda similar to what I see but make it even fuzzier". I have other vision problems that fluctuate a lot, but those are too hard to explain so I just don't.

I don't really know if this question really applies to me.. please point it out to me if not.
I wear glasses, and since two years ago, my eyesight was fine (with glasses on).
But then, I started seeing the world around me like you would when watching TV with an really really old television, like, not flat. Oh gosh, I am still trying to figure out how to explain it in my native language, and now I have to try to do it in English.. welp, it always looks like my entire field of vision is full of tiny dots and they are moving around in it. They aren't fully visible, I can still see through them, through some more, through some others less. Sometimes it also rustles in my ears like I could hear it. And I know that it comes from that, because the sound kinda matches with the movement of the dots.
I know it sounds kinda strange, but I think it answered the question asked.