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Comment by prmoustache | Hacker News Reader

As a non-blind user, I am struggling to understand why blind users would want a desktop session in the first place.

Based on intuition I would think the pure text experience of using cli tools would be superior for blind users. And since there is usually a cli/tui version of every single gui app / use case, it is not like one would be missing out on availability.

Or is it because terminal multiplexers like tmux and screen aren't accessible enough?

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It might help to know that blindness takes many forms. Having no sight at all is what many people assume but is not what many blind people experience. So some blind people can use accessibility tools together with the sight they do have which may for example only be in a small part of the area most people can see, or may be blurry, or otherwise impaired.

I didn't consider that indeed, thanks.

You'd be cut off from nearly the entire CSS and JavaScript-using World Wide Web, for one.

Put another way, as a user that prefers CLI + text mode (and stuck with DOS whenever possible for many years after installing Windows 3.0), I'd rather not start a desktop environment.

These days, there's basically no choice. Most software (even the text editor at work: VS Code) has abandoned text mode.

There are many days I would say it isn't a bad thing, until I'd realize I can't fill some important form online so that I don't have to queue during office hours at a desk.

I can't remember the URL or name, but there was a Firefox fork or extension that made it work in a terminal, that could probably help here.

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