>Posted-Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 16:55:05 -0600 (CST)
>Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 16:47:06 -0600
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>Originator: uaccess-l@trace.wisc.edu
>Sender: uaccess-l@trace.wisc.edu
>From: "Curtis Chong" <chong99@concentric.net>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <uaccess-l@trace.wisc.edu>
>Subject: Computer World Article on Blind Programmers
>X-Comment: list for discussion of universal access to information systems
>
>Facing Windows of lost opportunity
>by Steve Alexander
>
>Reprinted from Computer World, November 2, 1998.
>
>Blind programmers could compete quite nicely in the IT workplace
>when the mainframe was king.
>
>But today, as graphically oriented Windows tool kits displace the
>text-based mainframe development, blind programmers are facing an
>uncertain future.
>
>Nonstandard graphical components in many new tool kits can't be
>read by the blind. That's true despite the help of screen
>translating devices that traditionally have enabled them to work
>alongside their sighted information technology co-workers. To a
>large extent, this is shutting blind programmers out of new
>client/server development projects. And it's hampering their
>careers more than co-worker attitudes about blindness ever did.
>
>"Most of the new applications right now are coming from tool kits
>that blind people can't use," says Janina Sajka, director of
>information systems at the American Foundation for the Blind in New
>York. "While there is some hope on the horizon that we can get tool
>kit companies to be more responsive to serving all people ... the
>prospects today are fairly bleak."
>
>It isn't that people don't care, says Gary Wunder, a senior
>computer programmer/analyst for mainframes at the University of
>Missouri in Columbia, who is blind. "But everything these days has
>to be justified with a business case. If there aren't enough
>programmers who are blind who want to do something, why do it?"
>
>At the same time, blind programmers must face stereotypical ideas
>about the limitations of blind people, says Curtis Chong, president
>of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science. Chong,
>who is blind, is director of technology at the organization in
>Baltimore.
>
>"IT workers at some companies have learned that blind people can
>compete. But lots of others have never worked with a blind person
>before, and attitude-related barriers apply," Chong says.
>
>The Friendly Mainframe
>
>Chong says blind programmers have long been able to do their jobs
>in the mainframe world. After all, mainframe languages such as
>Fortran, Cobol and assembler are text-based. Using screen readers
>-- software that converts text on the screen to speech -- blind
>programmers were able toread what was on the screen and do the same
>development work as sighted colleagues.
>
>When PCs arrived in the 1980s, blind programmers could still do
>their work because the DOS operating system was text-based. The
>text could be read with screen-reader software, Chong says.
>
>But with the arrival of the Windows graphical user interfaces,
>which couldn't be converted to text, blind programmers were
>initially locked out of the newer PC and client/server worlds,
>Chong says.
>
>That door was partially reopened for blind programmers when
>screen-reader software was adapted to convert some, but not all,
>Windows graphical interfaces into screen-readable text.
>
>But there was a catch. Screen readers could convert graphical
>interfaces to text only if certain programming conventions were
>followed. And as Windows interface technology raced ahead, software
>companies increasingly took nonstandard programming shortcuts in
>their software developer tool kits -- shortcuts that rendered some
>items on the screen invisible to screen-reader software.
>
>Barring the Windows
>
>That has left blind programmers at a severe disadvantage because
>they are in effect barred from developing in some new Windows
>environments, Chong says.
>
>"I know blind programmers who work in C and Visual Basic in
>addition to mainframe languages, because as long as they can get at
>a text file, they can do programming. But if the graphical tool kit
>you are using requires you to drag and drop items on the screen,
>you can't do it," Chong says.
>
>Crista Earl, a technology resource specialist at the American
>Foundation for the Blind, agrees.
>
>"There sure haven't been very many blind programmers who have
>broken into the Windows world. In our database of 130 blind
>programmers, maybe a dozen have gone into Windows development. The
>majority are working on mainframes," Earl says.
>
>PROGRESS OR A PROBLEM?
>
>The problem faced by blind programmers boils down to technological
>progress in Windows, says Michael Freeman, a computer systems
>programmer in Vancouver, Wash., who is blind. Freeman works at the
>Bonneville Power Administration, a government agency that manages
>electric power generated by federal dams in the Western U.S.
>
>"You can't stop people from innovating, and I don't see that our
>screen readers will be able to keep up with that," Freeman says. He
>programs Digital Equipment Corp. minicomputers because they use a
>text-based operating system. "I still think it's worthwhile for a
>blind person to try a career as a programmer, but I do fear how
>well that person will do in the long term."
>
>Although none of the blind programmers interviewed said he believes
>he is in immediate danger of losing a job, there is concern about
>whether they will be needed in the future.
>
>Freeman, who is 50, says he hopes there will be enough text-based
>work for blind programmers to last until he retires. "Up to now,
>I've been able to avoid Windows NT because the computers that
>control the power system are for the most part VAXes. But as more
>things we use, such as time sheets and discrepancy reports, migrate
>to the NT network, I'll need to do NT. I don't know what will
>happen; all I can do is try."
>
>Wunder also is concerned about whether he can adapt to Windows in
>the future. "With Windows, it's not only how do you write a
>program, but, once you do, how do you make sure that the buttons
>line up on the screen? How do you make it visually attractive? I
>don't know the answer to that yet. ... I'll either be able to do my
>job here or I won't. And I think the jury is still out. That's not
>very comforting because my daughter is still going to need food."
>
>Brian Buhrow, a senior systems engineer at the University of
>California at Santa Cruz, who is a blind Unix programmer, says he
>is comforted that Unix is much in demand these days. "And there
>also are opportunities for doing things outside the mainstream of
>end-user programming, such as doing networking stuff that's not
>inherently visually oriented," Cruz says. "These opportunities may
>diminish, but they'll be there for a while."
>
>Perhaps the most ominous aspect of the Windows problem for blind
>programmers is that they are being barred from truly mainstream
>development, Sajka says.
>
>Seeing-eye programmers
>
>Some blind programmers have dealt with the tool kit situation by
>trying to shift the Windows development projects they couldn't
>handle to others, Chong says.
>
>"If you were lucky, you could delegate that kind of work away. But
>if not, and you couldn't get at the underlying text of what you
>wanted to do, you were out of luck. And that was the frustration
>many blind people ran into," Chong says. "Then the only way a blind
>person could do the work was to hire a sighted person as a reader
>to help run the machine."
>
>That represented big change for blind programmers, who had long
>used special devices to make themselves competitive with sighted
>people. Chong says the principal devices are screen-reading
>software; a braille embosser, which accepts text from a computer
>and prints it out in braille; refreshable braille displays, which
>are tactile devices that convert a single line of screen text into
>braille in real time; and special speech synthesizers that convert
>text to speech and stop and start very quickly.
>
>Another challenge for blind programmers: "Who will pay for all this
>expensive adaptive technology, given the fact that when the
>employee leaves, someone else may not find it useful?" Sajka asks.
>Cost may not be an issue for the employer when it comes to
>screen-reader software, which costs as little as $500. But that
>could change when it comes to the purchase of a braille display for
>$3,000 to $14,000.
>
>There are other technical obstacles for blind programmers in their
>everyday work. Something as routine as the project management
>software used in some IT shops can pose a problem. Many assign
>priorities to IT projects with a color-coding scheme.
>
>"A sighted person instantly sees the priority of critical to
>not-so-critical projects," Wunder says. "But how do I get that same
>information? Sure, somewhere in the program is a number that
>represents what the color scheme ought to be, but my screen reader
>can't read that. So I still write down my IT projects on
>three-by-five cards and work with my boss on priority."
>
>Attitude adjustments
>
>And there are nontechnical challenges for blind programmers as
>well.
>
>"The problem is one of attitude," Chong says. "What is it that an
>IT professional expects from somebody who is blind -- do they think
>that a person will be able to do work, function as a normal human
>being, socialize and get along with people in the workplace? Or do
>they think a blind person is weird and can only pick up a phone? IT
>professionals should examine their thinking about blindness and
>root out the typical stereotypes."
>
>Do attitudes about blind programmers restrict their opportunities
>to be promoted? There's no easy answer, Chong says. It depends on
>whether management "has a positive acceptance of a person who is
>blind," plus whether the blind person can overcome society's
>tendency to undervalue the blind and push hard to be promoted based
>on merit, he says.
>
>Buhrow says administrative jobs represent an opportunity for blind
>programmers.
>
>"Blind programmers could do product management that involves making
>decisions about people and products rather than about where to put
>code statements. I am a programmer. But I'm also a systems
>administrator, so I do a lot of things that are not programming but
>rather hardware installations and configurations."
>
>Debunking Myths and Stereotypes
>
>Blind programmers still often face a variety of stereotypes.
>According to Curtis Chong, president of the National Federation of
>the Blind in Computer Science, the challenges that blind
>programmers face include beliefs that:
>
>- Blind people aren't mobile and sit in a chair all day. "It's not
>uncommon for me be asked to go to class for a week in a different
>town, plus check into the office every night and get E-mail," Chong
>says. "And when we did disaster recovery exercises, I was expected
>to go along."
>
>- Blind people can't handle printed information. "I hire a human
>reader for 20 hours a week or use optical character recognition
>technology to convert text to speech or to braille."
>
>- Blind people who can do programming work must be incredibly
>smart. "If the basic techniques are in place to deal with
>blindness, it shouldn't require any more genius for a blind person
>to do programming than it does a sighted person."
>
>
>
>Steve Alexander is a freelance writer in Edina, Minn.
>
>
>
>
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