What people who go blind need isn't clever life hacks. Those are nice, of course, but bump dots and stuff like that just make our lives more convenient.

What we need is emotional support. We just lost our eyesight, our careers, our driver's licenses, many of our hopes and dreams, and the respect we once earned has been replaced with pity. Bump dots aren't going to substitute.

Your friend needs you to be the same friend you've always been. Please don't treat him any different. Be the constant in his rapidly changing life. Everything he knows has just been replaced with a new reality he doesn't know - don't be someone he doesn't know, too. Make the changes blindness necessitates, but keep everything else you can the same.

I go into more detail about the emotional train wreck of going blind $1. Everybody's different, though, and your friend's journey might not be like mine.

Your friend is lucky to have you. Mistakes will be made - that's inevitable. You're both new at this. Things will get awkward and a little bit uncomfortable, but together you can work through that.

Finally, there isn't a right way to be blind. There's no right place to put bump dots on a keyboard, no correct way to arrange your living space, nothing like that. We're few and far between, connected by a shared blindness but separate from each other. $1.

The other poster covered the emotional part of it. I will say, try to keep him connected to his world through his phone. Depending on whether it's an iPhone or Android, there is a VoiceOver type program that he needs to learn so he can still type, text, do email, check the news, watch youtube, etc. It basically tells you what you're touching on the screen but does take a bit of learning to get it down.

Getting training will be great. There are programs he can go to where he can go live at a independent training center for a bit and he will learn to be independent there. But learning assistive technology will be important as well. Learning screen readers and his keyboard.


Did he look down at his keyboard when he was sighted? I recommend he learn to touch type. The best in tech even sighted don’t look down at their keyboards and actually touch type. Right now my fingers are moving pretty rapidly across. And on my keyboard.


When I teach and mentor tech and computers I stress just how important touch typing actually is.

You can label the keyboard but he should still learn it.

I have dots on my enter key tab key, backspace key, number row on the main keyboard 4 7 and 0 control key may be helpful. On windows f4 may be important. F12 too. Maybe. Another one in the middle too. I had a reason for a specific one but can’t remember.

Also label his oven, stove and microwave.

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