Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Is there a website for expertly answered questions about blindness and accessibility ? (self.Blind)
submitted by n8dx
Hello everyone,
I've been following a number of online communities for blind and visually impaired people, mostly on Facebook and a Discord server or two. What I find is that there are a number of questions that keep cycling through these groups such as "How do I do X on my iPhone" or "What is the best way to file for Y financial aid". The problem with Reddit, Facebook and Discord is that the best answers disappear under the flood of new posts and questions and there is no good way to search for the great answers. Furthermore, when you search for these questions on Google you just get information targeted to sighted people and on sites that aren't always accessible. I was wondering if anyone knew of a website that does this already ?
If not, or if existing websites aren't a great experience, what would you all think of creating a Stack Exchange proposal for an Accessibility website ? Stack Exchange is a website template for questions and answers. The best questions are upvoted and easily accessible from a Google search, the best answers are ordered by upvotes right under their questions and duplicate questions are linked to the relevant older question. It's the format used in the super popular website StackOverflow for programmers, and over the years the creators have launched about a hundred more websites after listening to what the community wanted (ranging from Design to Philosophy). If we work all together with other communities of blind and visually impaired people, we could get them to launch an Accessibility Exchange website that could help everyone get the answers to their questions directly from Google.
Everything there is to know about launching a new Stack Exchange website can be found here : $1
What are your thoughts ?
Full disclosure : I am fully sighted and my line of work leads me to work in close proximity to many blind and visually impaired people. I am frustrated with the difficulty people have in finding answers to their questions about blindness and accessibility in general.
I've been following a number of online communities for blind and visually impaired people, mostly on Facebook and a Discord server or two. What I find is that there are a number of questions that keep cycling through these groups such as "How do I do X on my iPhone" or "What is the best way to file for Y financial aid". The problem with Reddit, Facebook and Discord is that the best answers disappear under the flood of new posts and questions and there is no good way to search for the great answers. Furthermore, when you search for these questions on Google you just get information targeted to sighted people and on sites that aren't always accessible. I was wondering if anyone knew of a website that does this already ?
If not, or if existing websites aren't a great experience, what would you all think of creating a Stack Exchange proposal for an Accessibility website ? Stack Exchange is a website template for questions and answers. The best questions are upvoted and easily accessible from a Google search, the best answers are ordered by upvotes right under their questions and duplicate questions are linked to the relevant older question. It's the format used in the super popular website StackOverflow for programmers, and over the years the creators have launched about a hundred more websites after listening to what the community wanted (ranging from Design to Philosophy). If we work all together with other communities of blind and visually impaired people, we could get them to launch an Accessibility Exchange website that could help everyone get the answers to their questions directly from Google.
Everything there is to know about launching a new Stack Exchange website can be found here : $1
What are your thoughts ?
Full disclosure : I am fully sighted and my line of work leads me to work in close proximity to many blind and visually impaired people. I am frustrated with the difficulty people have in finding answers to their questions about blindness and accessibility in general.
zersiax 2 points 1y ago
I have thought about this format of website for some time now. Back in 2015 or so I had the idea of a stack exchange-like website for disabled folks, not so much for questions for the demographic, but more for cataloging the huge amount of street smarts that is mandatorily stuck in our head. How does a person who can't see effectively sort laundry? How does a person in a wheel chair stay in shape?
Most rehabilitation therapists are able-bodied people who can at best empathize, but don't live the life the way a person living with the same condition does, which made me think of the idea to have the disabled teach the disabled and let the one tap into the street smarts of the many. Unfortunately i couldn't secure funding I would require to set up such a project and work on it, but it still is something I want to do at some point.
The OP's idea is a good one as well though; questions on here, on Quora etc do get scrolled down the screen pretty quickly and the search feature does exist but is somewhat clunky ... I'd visit such a website to answer questions at least.
Most rehabilitation therapists are able-bodied people who can at best empathize, but don't live the life the way a person living with the same condition does, which made me think of the idea to have the disabled teach the disabled and let the one tap into the street smarts of the many. Unfortunately i couldn't secure funding I would require to set up such a project and work on it, but it still is something I want to do at some point.
The OP's idea is a good one as well though; questions on here, on Quora etc do get scrolled down the screen pretty quickly and the search feature does exist but is somewhat clunky ... I'd visit such a website to answer questions at least.
n8dx [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Yes, totally agree on the street smarts. There are so many things to be documented and be made available to everyone. If you are interested in working on this with me, you can send me a DM!
r_1235 2 points 1y ago
Hmm, here are some existing resources:
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Your idea of stackexchange website is also very cool. Although, wonder who will fund all the costs. Who will maintain it. Also, I've noticed some accessibility issues with stackoverflow, most important one being there's no obvious direct way to jump from 1 comment to another, I have to use NVDA's text nav addon to jump from paragraph to paragraph. I think that can be easyly fixed. The same problem persists in reddit website as well.
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Your idea of stackexchange website is also very cool. Although, wonder who will fund all the costs. Who will maintain it. Also, I've noticed some accessibility issues with stackoverflow, most important one being there's no obvious direct way to jump from 1 comment to another, I have to use NVDA's text nav addon to jump from paragraph to paragraph. I think that can be easyly fixed. The same problem persists in reddit website as well.
n8dx [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Thanks for the resources, I'll go check them out. A cool thing about the StackExchange format is that the StackExchange developers pay for the website. This is possible because they reuse most of the code between the websites. However, in order to protect themselves from launching websites that no one uses, they have put in place a 3 step process :
1st step is definition, where you propose the new website and have to come up with 40 questions that embody the topics scope. The goal is to see if enough people are ready to join together in order to support the site.
2nd step is commitment, where you need to get a certain amount of people to sign a digital petition
3rd step is the beta, where a live site is deployed on a probationary basis. If the site isn't used, it's shut down, so it's important to spread the word at this point.
Detail are here : $1
If anyone wants to discuss this further and maybe put a team together, you can DM me. Perhaps some r/Blind mods?
1st step is definition, where you propose the new website and have to come up with 40 questions that embody the topics scope. The goal is to see if enough people are ready to join together in order to support the site.
2nd step is commitment, where you need to get a certain amount of people to sign a digital petition
3rd step is the beta, where a live site is deployed on a probationary basis. If the site isn't used, it's shut down, so it's important to spread the word at this point.
Detail are here : $1
If anyone wants to discuss this further and maybe put a team together, you can DM me. Perhaps some r/Blind mods?
Aggressive-Yoghurt31 2 points 1y ago
I totally agree with the fact that it is hard to find information that a blind person may be interested in. I think having such a site would help so many people
TechnicalPragmatist 1 points 1y ago
I don’t have these problems and don’t need it. However, I think this is an interesting and a great idea.
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