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Comment by waterside81 | Hacker News Reader

Fantastic story and a great reminder to developers to be mindful of accessibility issues. I've worked on a project for the VA (Veteran Affairs) in Los Angeles and I had to consciously keep asking myself "How would a visually impaired user interact with this? How would somebody with limited mobility use this?". It really makes you think about your design and your markup (in the case of a web app).

For developers interested in accessibility issues and the various requirements, check out http://www.section508.gov

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Oddly enough, I had a blind customer call me to ask something about my service BitBuffet. She sold music online through us and took a minute after I solved her problem to tell me how great my site was for the blind.

I had no idea! I just follow most best practices for the web, but it really made my day to know I helped her do something she always wanted to do! Warm fuzzies indeed.

Yes it's the extremely interesting article by a blind Linux user who writes:

"I have seen a lot of technology for the blind, and I can safely say that the iPhone represents the most revolutionary thing to happen to the blind for at least the last ten years."

What we developers should note is

"Applications have the same issues with accessibility as with any graphical environment. Apple has done a good thing by making guidelines available for app developers, which I passionately urge them to follow. Any blind computer user has run up against these problems in Windows, Mac, or in Gnome. These include unlabeled buttons and fields, unreachable controls except through annoying means, or in extreme cases complete inaccessibility."

SS12: Code for a Cause, the contest that spawned the Color ID app mentioned in the article, is also held in Los Angeles. Here's their site: http://ss12.info/

Also, let me know if you happen to have suggestions for the Color ID app in particular; I'm the lead developer on that app.

I had to do some accessibility QA for a large shrink-wrapped software application, and it's quite the ordeal. I liken it to trying to operate an application through a telephone interface. When you're digging through menus, you need to listen to every. single. menu. entry. before deciding which one you want, and I found it far too easy to get distracted and forget where I was.

I suppose users who are used to dealing with accessibility software are used to this kind of interface, but I think it requires a level of patience that sighted users are not accustomed to (at least when dealing with their desktop software).

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