Invisible exhibition
A few years ago I visited the Invisible exhibition in Warsaw (https://niewidzialna.pl/en). It’s a special place where you can feel like a blind person — you come into total darkness and have to perform normal, daily tasks like preparing the meal in the kitchen. But you know what? Even if I am performing them pretty well for many years, doing them without sight was extremely difficult (not to mention I had a small panic attack when lights went out). Sense of touch, hearing, smell — all of them without vision were completely different. Moreover, the guides on the tour are blind or visually impaired people — and listening to their experiences made me think about many cases I had never imagined before. I was super lucky to be guided by a visually impaired person who is also a developer — and when we started talking about some computer-connected stuff he opened to me a completely new perspective. Have you ever seen what using screen readers, in reality, looks like? I was shocked by how fast the content is read! If you haven’t seen it yet, just take a look at the video below:
Surprising, don’t you think? I strongly recommend you check the Invisible Exhibition (I know that similar initiatives exist e.g. in Cracow, Prague, and Budapest) or at least start a screen reader on your laptop. Struggling with the daily problems of users will certainly make it easier to remember about accessibility in your application.
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