Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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What kind of Employment do you all have as blind folks? (self.Blind)
submitted by chinawcswing
I'm curious as to what kinds of jobs you all have.
BIIANSU 7 points 1y ago
I'm an aspiring Film & Media Composer. I'm currently writing soundtracks for a few video games at the moment. It's hard, but I'm finally getting clients :)
Remy_C 1 points 1y ago
Hey that's fantastic! I've been voice acting, doing sound design and composing for a number of years. Despite only having one two short paying clients, I really love all of it. So congratulations to you!
retrolental_morose 6 points 1y ago
I'm a high school teacher.
QuasarchShooby 2 points 1y ago
Have your students ever been jerks? I want to sub while I work on my degree, but teenagers scare me.
retrolental_morose 8 points 1y ago
I teach at a school for the visually-impaired so it's a little different. I've done stints in mainstream primary education, but pre-teen it's easier again.
Not sure I'd have the cojones to face aroom of 30 typical teenagers I must admit!
Not sure I'd have the cojones to face aroom of 30 typical teenagers I must admit!
Eviltechnomonkey 6 points 1y ago
I am not blind or have vision loss myself, but I have worked with colleagues who did. Some of the positions they held were as computer programmers, department managers, Braille proofreaders, customer service representatives, grant writers, public relations managers, directors, c level positions, electrical engineers, and more.
For added context, I used to work for the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, KY as internal tech support, which meant I interacted with just about everyone there at some point if they used any form of technology whatsoever.
For added context, I used to work for the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, KY as internal tech support, which meant I interacted with just about everyone there at some point if they used any form of technology whatsoever.
LilacRose32 5 points 1y ago
I’m an accountant
Marconius 4 points 1y ago
I contract as the Accessibility Specialist for Lyft and do accessibility testing and usability consulting on the side.
BlindFuryC 4 points 1y ago
Software engineer here
chinawcswing [OP] 3 points 1y ago
Would you be able to explain a bit about how you are able to read and write code effectively?
Just as one example, I'm having trouble imagining how a screen reader would work with all the open parenthesis, closing parenthesis, semicolons, and etc. Is it easy to understand the code you are listening to? When I am trying to figure out what a function does, I often find myself looking back up and back down to remind myself of what is going on. Is that easy to do with a screen reader?
Another example, my IDE will highlight obvious bugs like spelling errors or missing parenthesis in my code, which forces me to visually look at the area and figure out what is wrong. Do you have something like that?
Also something like being able to read a file from top to bottom, to see how the flow of execution traverses from one function to another, and construct a mental model of the code flow in my head is important. Is this not too difficult to do with a screen reader?
Just as one example, I'm having trouble imagining how a screen reader would work with all the open parenthesis, closing parenthesis, semicolons, and etc. Is it easy to understand the code you are listening to? When I am trying to figure out what a function does, I often find myself looking back up and back down to remind myself of what is going on. Is that easy to do with a screen reader?
Another example, my IDE will highlight obvious bugs like spelling errors or missing parenthesis in my code, which forces me to visually look at the area and figure out what is wrong. Do you have something like that?
Also something like being able to read a file from top to bottom, to see how the flow of execution traverses from one function to another, and construct a mental model of the code flow in my head is important. Is this not too difficult to do with a screen reader?
BlindFuryC 2 points 1y ago
Apologies for being a while in getting back to you. I'll do my best, though I guess nothing would quite show it as well as seeing/hearing it in action. Hit up YouTube or similar for some good examples of that.
So brackets and braces aren't a problem, typically you'd just tell your screen reader to read them out (normally for normal reading, you'd probably have them turned off). Same with semicolons, dot delimiters and so forth. It does mean that a line of code is read out quite literally.
```
theRoom.shake("tick tick boom");
```
Would be read out as "the room dot shake left peren, quote tick tick boom quote right peren semicolon".
As for code navigation, there's plenty of tools that can help with that. Everything from code folding/collapsing (available in most IDEs) to jumping to symbols, to show usages windows, go to definitions, etc. And screen reader users are often some of the most learned people when it comes to IDE shortcuts. I don't think I know them all for VS, for example, it's not *quite* encyclopedic, but I could certainly reel off a good number of them at a moment's notice.
As for "squigglies", where the IDE will highlight problems/errors/warnings, screen readers will sometimes (depending on IDE and how they've implemented accessibility around reporting these to screen readers) read them out before reading the line. Or else, in VS Code, for example, I believe it'll make a noise if you're on a line with a problem, and you can hunt it down and find out why. I'm not sure if this is universal or if you just have a screen reader, I've not looked into it thoroughly and can't find that much information around it. But yeah, there are normally ways of being informed if your line isn't quite right. It's normally done when navigating line by line, so that it doesn't get in the way while you're finishing up a line.
For full research, I went looking around for YouTube videos of blind people coding. I found this one by Microsoft, and it had promise, but the developer in question said that the way blind people code is "Using visual studio", which is such a gross product plug and such a narrow view that I almost stopped watching at that point. I personally do use it, but I use other tools too, and know plenty of coders who haven't used it and still hold down respectable jobs as software developers. But I'll include the link here for your own perusal, since the rest of it is good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc
Hope this is a useful glimpse into coding with a screen reader.
So brackets and braces aren't a problem, typically you'd just tell your screen reader to read them out (normally for normal reading, you'd probably have them turned off). Same with semicolons, dot delimiters and so forth. It does mean that a line of code is read out quite literally.
```
theRoom.shake("tick tick boom");
```
Would be read out as "the room dot shake left peren, quote tick tick boom quote right peren semicolon".
As for code navigation, there's plenty of tools that can help with that. Everything from code folding/collapsing (available in most IDEs) to jumping to symbols, to show usages windows, go to definitions, etc. And screen reader users are often some of the most learned people when it comes to IDE shortcuts. I don't think I know them all for VS, for example, it's not *quite* encyclopedic, but I could certainly reel off a good number of them at a moment's notice.
As for "squigglies", where the IDE will highlight problems/errors/warnings, screen readers will sometimes (depending on IDE and how they've implemented accessibility around reporting these to screen readers) read them out before reading the line. Or else, in VS Code, for example, I believe it'll make a noise if you're on a line with a problem, and you can hunt it down and find out why. I'm not sure if this is universal or if you just have a screen reader, I've not looked into it thoroughly and can't find that much information around it. But yeah, there are normally ways of being informed if your line isn't quite right. It's normally done when navigating line by line, so that it doesn't get in the way while you're finishing up a line.
For full research, I went looking around for YouTube videos of blind people coding. I found this one by Microsoft, and it had promise, but the developer in question said that the way blind people code is "Using visual studio", which is such a gross product plug and such a narrow view that I almost stopped watching at that point. I personally do use it, but I use other tools too, and know plenty of coders who haven't used it and still hold down respectable jobs as software developers. But I'll include the link here for your own perusal, since the rest of it is good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc
Hope this is a useful glimpse into coding with a screen reader.
chinawcswing [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Thank you very much.
codeplaysleep 3 points 1y ago
Sr. Software engineer, hoping to transition to engineering manager in the next 12 months. I currently lead a team of 8 developers.
chinawcswing [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Would you please check out $1 question if you have a moment?
River-Song-1986 3 points 1y ago
Even though it is not in my field of study I am a switchboard operator at my local veterans hospital.
mehgcap 3 points 1y ago
I used to do assistive technology instruction, and still do that on occasion. My day job is as a programmer now.
DrillInstructorJan 2 points 1y ago
I'm a musician and I am one of three company directors at an agency for musicians.
petite4eyes 2 points 1y ago
I have blind acquaintances who are attorneys, musicians, user experience consultants, nursing home administrators…
thatawkwardcosplayer 2 points 1y ago
Ranch hand (8-now), tortilla maker / local mex place (14-16), daycare aid (10-18) and dishwasher (current)
TechnicalPragmatist 1 points 1y ago
Taught assistive tech for a little while, volunteer around the academic tech side of things and in the summer will be working and interning for an AT company doing some software coding. Currently also in school for compsci. Been mostly been volunteering in tech and consistently in tech and like it so finally decided to study it.
Remy_C 1 points 1y ago
I'm a "oice actor, sound designer, writer and music composer. And since none of those things are currently paying the bills, I'm also working technical support right now for one of banks in Canada. And that's recent. For the last 9 years before THIS, I was working at the front desk doing office work, client assistance and a bunch of other stuff at a branch of said bank.
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