HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ jimray

This is a great story and inspiring and hits all the right "feel good" buttons.

BUT.

Isn't the story really "how blind people use the accessibility features of iOS"? Accessibility, specifically Voice Over, is a core component of iOS and pretty straightforward for developers to implement. The new Flickr app, for instance, seems to offer many of the same accessibility features shown in the video, though their implementation could use a little work. The Instagram guys should be commended for adding the accessibility hooks but, really, that's all they did. That's a day's worth of work.

Can anyone speak to how Instagram works for the blind on an Android device?

⬐ conradev

> pretty straightforward for developers to implement

Although true, many developers don't even take the time out to do it[1]. This video demonstrates that the creators of Instagram did take the time out to do it, even though a lot of interaction their application is based on vision.

[1] http://mattgemmell.com/2012/10/26/ios-accessibility-heroes-a...

⬐ PhearTheCeal

I believe the big role Instagram played in this video is the use of photo comments. After he uploaded a picture, people would comment on it to explain what it was and how he did. So I see it as a way for blind people to capture moments around them without walking around and touching everything.

⬐ newishuser

His YouTube channel is very entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/user/tommyedisonxp

Tommy has a great sense of humor and explains some interesting aspects of being blind since birth like:

Color: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YN8_lg6-U&list=PL832E5...

Cooking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umiOuVA7PEc&list=PL832E5...

Using an ATM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzah0A6IC5o&list=PL832E5...

⬐ macey

This guy is great! Thanks for sharing. Re: color, his story about buying a car made me laugh. "Heather mist? What? Nothing else in the world is 'heather mist.'"

⬐ ja27

We've gotten a bit of feedback from blind (and non-blind but "low vision") users of our educational apps. We even got requests for better Voiceover support for an app that we thought was so visual that someone with impaired vision wouldn't get any use out of it. Turns out that there are a lot of vision-impaired parents that like to use apps with their normal-vision children. That's something that hadn't occurred to us.

⬐ AUmrysh

I've become more and more interested over the years in computer usability for the blind and vision impaired. I still feel like there's a lot of room to improve these things.

Being able to navigate a web page and interact with it just seems like it would be so much more difficult without the ability to see it.

⬐ jcampbell1

Don't waste your time becoming "interested". Just start doing it. Learn to put your OS in blind person mode, and spend an hour learning how to use it. It is amazing how fast and easy it is to fix various problems. For instance, in HackerNews the upvote/downvote links are voiced as "link link" on my Mac. That is not very helpful to a blind person. A trivial change could make that voiced as "link-upvote, link-downvote".

⬐ jasonkostempski

Are there any examples of accessibility features that actually make usage more efficient? Not for Instagram, I mean in general.

⬐ xbryanx

This is the ideal behind universal accessibility design. For instance, when you're in a loud and crowded place a person with average hearing abilities might have the same needs as a deaf person when watching a video. That's why museums regularly use open captions on video screens since they benefit everyone, not just the deaf.

As a side note, I bet this guy gets fantastic battery life out of his mobile device, since he can set the brightness to the lowest setting possible all the time. I guess I'm assuming that all that Siri and speaker amp usage doesn't drain the battery more.

⬐ chrmaury

You're right. iOS has a feature called screen curtain, which turns your screen off while using Voice Over. Great for battery life (and privacy).

⬐ DanBC

"Separate all links with more than whitespace" makes it easier for everyone to find and click the correct link, rather than hesitantly mousing over a link and hoping it's right, or having to slow down and carefully click because the target is small and close to something else.

"Use a sensible default font size" - yes, people can zoom the page. But starting with a sensible large font size means they don't have to. That means your careful layout doesn't get moved around and possibly broken.

"Use a sensible set of high contrast colours; consider an easy way to switch to light on dark" - offing low contrast colours for text and background means that people are going to either not read, or are going to use scripts to replace all your colours. Some people prefer (or need) light on dark, and will use scripts to replace your colours. Your nice design will end up very different if I get to pick my own colours.

These doesn't sound like much, but there's a bunch of little optimisations that help accessibility, but which also help everyone. Tweaking a webpage before I start reading it may only take a few seconds. But first impressions count, and if my first impression is irritation at the bloody silly choice of light grey on grey colours and a bit of fiddling to make it readable I don't have a good first impression.

Also, compare the time it takes to make it readable with the time it takes to make a page load, and the efforts that people go to when they improve page load times. Half a second makes a big difference.

⬐ vpdn

The integrated iPhone camera app even tells you about the objects within the picture.

"I simply gawped when one blind woman pulled out an iPhone then snapped a perfect shot, guided by the built-in Camera app [..] One face. Small face. Face near right edge. Autofocussed."

http://svan.ca/blog/2012/blind/

⬐ nycacorp

well as a visually impaired Web user, with almost every tech device out there and working for a Content Delivery Network. I can say that more Webmasters need to take accessibility and responsive design into consideration when designing and creating their sites. Not everything can be for SEO and usability purposes.

⬐ pella

original Link: http://blindfilmcritic.com/archives/2689

+ 2 more videos:

How Blind People Use The iPhone 4S – Twitter & YouTube Apps

How Blind People Use The iPhone 4S – Facebook App

⬐ graiz

VoiceOver is awesome. I wrote a guide for people who can see. I use it all the time. http://www.raizlabs.com/blog/2012/12/18/ios-voiceover-gettin...

⬐ alpb

Are we know of any famous Instagram users making use of this great feature due to their condition? I'd love to follow someone who cannot see but take pictures.

⬐ aw3c2

"Blogspam" (blame the submitter, not the blog) for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1e7ZCKQfMA

tl;dw: iOS has a mode for vision impaired users where buttons are spoken when touched and a double touch activates them. The instagram app supports that. The video is fun, though it reeks of "viral" ad.

⬐ baby

I don't see any problem with that. Happens a lot on HN and it's perfectly normal.

⬐ danso

In defense of the submitter...I actually prefer blog postings with embeds of the videos...the normal youtube page is just so distracting with its right-hand rail. But in this case, the blog post could've added a little more context besides just the video...

⬐ bradleyland

It's a bit of a stretch to call Kottke.org "blogspam". Jason has been a consistent source of interesting content for years. He deserves credit for the service he provides: finding and sharing interesting content.

⬐ aw3c2

I explicitely said not to blame the blog but the submitter. There is nothing worth pointing someone at in the submitted link, just the video. There is no value added from watching the video on a site that is not its "homepage."

There is nothing wrong with the post on the blog itself. It is an aggregation. HN however is an aggregator itself and we do not need a late piece of a chain of links/via/source tunnels. Linking the source is best.

⬐ DanBC

This link has one single embedded YouTube video, and the text "So we'll just take a picture of the crew. Why I'm holding the thing up to my face like I can look through the thing is beyond me, but here we go.

His Instagram feed is available here. (via ★precipice)"

It also has some ads.

How is that anything other than blogspam? The linked blog adds nothing of value to the raw YouTube link; there's no commentary or critique or links to other relevant content or anything.

⬐ mbreese

For one thing, because it's Jason Kottke. He finds interesting things online and posts them with minimal commentary. He's done this for many years, and is a good source for interesting things online. He is less of an aggregator and more of a curator.

⬐ aw3c2

Just as the HN frontpage. The community is the curator. Giving credit to someone else's curation is good and should be done (eg in a comment), but submitting the actual item is best.

⬐ jonknee

Because Jason found the video (on Precipice) and Charlesmigli apparently reads Jason's site. This is precisely what YouTube allows embedding for, sharing interesting videos.

As for not adding any value, I think the link to Instagram was valuable. Almost everyone who watches the video wants to visit that page but it is not linked on the YouTube page.

⬐ aw3c2

It is, you just have to expand the description.

⬐ DanBC

I don't care what Jason does on his website. I do care when people don't post the original source.

Some sites are worse than others. This site isn't bad (I trust the people telling me so) but still, this instance? It's just a YouTube embedded video.

I think the added value that I've missed is "approval[1] by Jason K." - seeing it's from his site means people are more likely to clicky the HN submission. That's fair enough. I just need to remember it, I guess.

Sorry if I was grumpy! I don't think I was.

[1] Approval isn't a great word. "Collation" or what ever fits too.

⬐ melvinmt

I wouldn't have watched it without that single line of quote.

⬐ bradleyland

This follows a pretty well established format for Kottke. He usually extracts a "hook" from the content he posts. It gives you some idea of what's contained therein, which is often not present at the source. I hate wasting 2-3 minutes watching a video when a simple excerpt could have shown me that it's not in my wheelhouse.

Another nice thing about Kottke's site is that he frequently posts updates to previous entries. It's likely that with popularity, more information will be uncovered about the subject matter. Jason posts "digests" with summaries of updates to previous entries, which often contain useful insight you wouldn't gain without allocating a not insignificant amount of attention to this single piece of media.

Yes, it has "some ads", but please, let's try to be rational about this. Since when are we waging war against anyone displaying advertising anywhere? The amount of advertising on his site seems more than reasonable to me.

I feel a little more inclined to stick up for Jason because I've been following him for so long. He was literally one of the first blogs I ever followed, and I have learned to trust him over the years. I love the fact that he's able to do what he does full time, because I get the benefit of his curation.

I absolutely get where you're coming from. I hate when someone posts a link to content that is obviously re-hashed from somewhere else with no additional value, but if you spend some time with Kottke.org, I think you'll see that there are good guys and there are bad guys in this scene. Jason is one of the good guys.

⬐ frozenport

Does he have a bookcase in the background?

⬐ hackmiester

Braille books, I'd imagine.

⬐ simpsn

Awesome and inspiring story!

⬐ jheriko

lol. i initially read this as, how to blind people, use Instagram.

⬐ bluetidepro

> "Why am I holding the thing up to my face like I can look through the thing is beyond me..." hehehe I chuckled as his joke here.

I think this is really awesome. It seems so rare to see these types of fun and inviting (and what I would call) success stories around the web, when it comes to accessibility.

Hopefully more videos like this surface so that other developers/designers see why it's worth going the extra mile with accessibility! And that doing so, means all types of users can use your app, even people you thought never would!