#blind problems

[ps-im-blind]

For anyone who may be new here…

First of all, welcome! Whether you’re a fellow blind/visually impaired person, or you’re a sighted person that’s curious about what it’s like to be “livin’ the blind life,” you are more than welcome here. That being said, there are a few things you may want to know, or that may be helpful to you that I’d like to address.

1. I’d like to add a little disclaimer: I have something called Oculocutaneous Albinism. That being said, it does mean I have a severe visual impairment, but I am not completely blind, nor am I claiming to be. About 80-90% of “blind people” have some functional vision, so please before you try to accuse me of “faking” I encourage you to educate yourself on the VIP community (which is what this blog is for, anyway).

3. If you haven’t already noticed, I like to write in large print and bold. I do this because it’s easier on the eyes, whether or not you’re visually impaired. It’s part of my way to make Tumblr accessible! Feel free to “steal” my formats, I don’t mind. If it helps someone, then that’s great!

4. I use a lot of abbreviations, such as BVI (blind or visually impaired, VIP (visually impaired person), and stuff like that. I’ll usually clarify if it’s one I don’t use often, but these are the main ones I use.

5. Oh, and I am a devout Catholic. It comes up in practically every aspect of my life (@blindandblessed is where I post Catholic stuff) but don’t be surprised if I mention it here and there.

6. Even though this blog was created to spread awareness about the VIP community, I believe that being truly accessible means working to cater to all disabilities and needs. That being said, I do not have much experience or knowledge in these areas (though I am actively learning) so feel free to message me if there’s something I have missed (transcriptions, trigger warnings, etc.)

Here are a few of the resource tags you may find here.

#know your blind terms: educate yourself on parts of the eye, different eye diseases, vision terminology, etc.

#blind problems: I’m sure many VIPs will find these relatable

#blind tech: cool apps and tools for VIPs

#blind jokes: for those who can appreciate some humor (I only add/reblog positive jokes, never anything condescending or belittling).

#dear sighted world and #sincerely a blind girl: just me ranting, mainly about ableism.

Oh, and for my fellow VIPs…

1. Header is a pastel purple to rose gradient.

2. Avatar is a generic picture of a braille page.

3. I try to make all my content large print, but I can’t change other content, like captions or reblogs, so all that will be labeled #small print.

And with that, enjoy the blog!

[study-it-sightless]

Agh! My teacher is showing us a video through Zoom, but it’s one of those videos that’s just a bunch of text with happy music in the background. I cannot stress enough how frustrating those are! If anyone sees this and is a teacher of a visually impaired child please please please if you use those videos add ei an audio or text version of the words. Our screen readers don’t read the text on videos! And if the text has a lot of animations (sliding around, fading in and out, or handwriting) it can make it hard even for people with the majority of their vision.

[lifesmessyomg]

Why the new Instagram descriptions are still problematic for the blind

• They use alt text, which does not appear in the caption, making them inaccessible to those who rely on descriptions, but don’t use screen readers.

• They still rely on the poster to manually input them in order for the descriptions to be accurate.

• The posts without manually input descriptions use AI to guess what the picture is. 90% of the time, this means that the description guesses less than a quarter of what is actually in the photo correctly.

• AI does not read text accurately, so even if text is detected, we are only read bits of it; usually only the last line or so.

• A lot of the blind community uses large print rather than screen readers, and therefore cannot use this feature. If people stop writing descriptions in their captions, that makes those posts inaccessible to a majority of the very group that this update claims to be helping.

This is, of course, a step in the right direction regarding making social media more accessible, however it does not seem like much of a victory for the blind community overall.

Honestly, the best way to help us is to just write your own descriptions in your caption; not to count on unreliable AI software to guess for you.

[background-noise-headache]

I’m having a bad vision day. I strained my eyes last night at the movie theatre and then made ur worse by trying to read after despite being in pain already. I thought I would wake up in the morning with my eyes feeling better but no such luck. My eyes have been in such agony I can’t even look at my phone. I tried using voice over but then I remembered I hate voice over and have no idea how to use it. So I’m touch typing by muscle memory and then having Siri read back my messages. Please excuse any typos today, I can’t see my screen enough to know if I’m doing this right.

It’s a pity because I wanted to write today but I guess I’m going to have to find some non visual activities

[theblindadventures]

Battel #295 The door

I had an encounter with my arch nemesis today, a half open door. It took me by surprise across my face, though I struck back with my cane.

Over all i think won that battle with only a minor cut to my eyebrow

Score:

Me 1

Doors: 294

I’m catching up to them.

[ladyalleta]

The Blind INTJ

Me looking at the menu at McDonald's: I wonder what I should get...

Me:...

Me: *remembers that I'm blind and can't read the menu*

Me: ...

Me: ...

Me: *pulls out phone and googles menu*

[ps-im-blind]

Ugh! My dad got a new dining room set. It’s bigger than our old one, and it’s rectangular instead of circular. Now, as a blind person, new furniture already freaks me out, but we have an added problem.

My blindisms.

I’ve touched on it before, but most blind people exhibit different forms of neurodivergency (sometimes we get an additional diagnosis, but not in most cases). Blindisms are similar to what the Autism community would call “stimming.” These can be general (rocking back and forth, spinning, etc.) or blind-specific (light gazing). One of my main ones is walking. I have a certain pattern in my house that I will walk (sometimes for hours at a time). This pattern includes going around my dining room table, which is now a different shape and position than I’m used to, and it’s really messing me up!!!

[ps-im-blind]

This. Is, Genius!