How blind people use Instagram [video]
kottke.org
kottke.org
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!
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?
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...
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...
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.
"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.
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.
"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."
+ 2 more videos:
How Blind People Use The iPhone 4S – Twitter & YouTube Apps
How Blind People Use The iPhone 4S – Facebook App
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.