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Comment by jzwinck | Hacker News Reader

I live somewhere not mentioned in the article but we have tactile paving too. I have never once seen a blind person using it (no, I am not blind myself). On the other hand I did see construction workers installing it, and it seems to take quite a bit of extra effort.

So I wonder: are these things useful to people other than the tile makers, for whom government mandated special tiles are undoubtedly a fantastic revenue stream?

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Haven't read the article, but as a blind person myself, nope. Much of the infrastructure designed to "help" us is so inconsistent, non-intuitive or broken that I don't bother using it, far preferring my own skills and knowledge of my surroundings.

For instance, I have an audible signal near my house. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes one side of the street works, and which side that is varies from day to day. In Austin, we have a variety of signal designs with no standard placement and, in some cases, a non-intuitive pattern of beeps which you can only learn by listening to the traffic patterns and correlating them with the sounds. So, in short, if I walk up and press a button, I have no indication whether that button will give me an audible signal, and historically giving me a signal is no indicator of getting one in the future. I feel truly sorry for anyone who actually needs the things. For my part, traffic never lies unless you get a bad driver, in which case an audible signal wouldn't save you anyway.

Thanks for reading my mini-rant on the fucked-up state of shit to "help" blind folks. :P

Thanks for that, it's very interesting. The blind people in my city seem to just walk around using their senses without special tiles. Once in a while they speak up and ask someone to help them, but not often.

As a cyclist I sometimes feel the same as you: special accommodations are often inconsistent or inadequate to the point that they are not useful except to casual users. And I don't think there are casual blind people.

Are you an engineer? I ask because you're on Hacker News.

I've long been curious what the day to day workflow is for a blind engineer. Particularly if there are any folks doing software development.

I'd be tempted to believe the kind of pseudo-visual thinking required for software design is exercised more in someone who has to construct their surroundings without visual input.

I'd also be happy to be told I'm wrong. I seek to understand.

I know at least two blind people who worked on actual coding (in C++). Obviously, both of them had rather important advice to give the accessibility team. :-)

Here's a fairly recent post (or two) about being blind and a developer.

https://www.parhamdoustdar.com/2016/04/03/tools-of-blind-pro...

The topic has come up before: https://hn.algolia.com/?utm_source=opensearch&utm_medium=sea...

So, in short, if I walk up and press a button, I have no indication whether that button will give me an audible signal...

Probably for that reason, the audible signals around here are audible all the time - there's a slow tempo signal for "stop" and a significantly more urgent, higher tempo signal for "go".

Move to Australia, where we have a standard audible pedestrian signal/button design used nationally...

http://theconversation.com/sublime-design-the-pb-5-pedestria...

Here's a UK one, I love showing friends and random old people it's there, it's usually news to most people! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-22706881

Interesting - here in Oz the vibrating device is on the face above the push button. I'm not sure whether it's easier to locate if you're blind/vision-impaired and thus actually need it, but it's certainly a bit more obvious for sighted folk.

I have perfect senses, but if I'm using my phone to write a message or something I'll follow the tactile path to avoid walking into something.

Per a blind friend of mine, they are useful. Both for himself, and as cues for his dog.

Keep in mind also that far more people are vision-impaired than totally blind. Being high contrast and tactile helps those people navigate as well.

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