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Re: visually impaired front end developer

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From: Roel Van Gils
Date: Sep 19, 2017 4:29AM

Hi Bryan,

If they're just sending images over of what the final result should look like, I presume they expect you to 'slice' that design. Slicing is a term that's (unfortunately) still being used by many web agencies when referring to the process of turning (high-fidelity) visual designs into (hopefully) cross-browser, responsive, semantic, accessible and fast-loading to HTML and CSS.

From the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slicing_(interface_design):

"In fields employing interface design skills, slicing is the process of dividing a single 2D user interface composition layout (comp) into multiple image files (digital assets) of the graphical user interface (GUI) for one or more electronic pages. It is typically part of the client side development process of creating a web page and/or web site, but is also used in the user interface design process of software development and game development."

'Slicing' is only one aspect of modern front-end development, but I'm afraid it's an aspect that's very hard to do for someone who is blind. I've did it myself, for many years, being a completely colourblind front-end developer (I have achromatopsia). I could get around my limitations, by sampling colours from the design and use their corresponding values in my CSS (and double check a lot), but when you're blind, I'm afraid there's no way you can turn visual designs into code (especially CSS) without the help of someone else.

You'll need to adjust your workflow. You could, for example, be responsible for coding standards based, semantic HTML based on a textual representation of a page's contend and provide all the necessary CSS hooks, and then have a sighted developer write out the CSS.

Needless to say, perhaps, but apart from 'slicing', front-end development has many other aspect to it in which you can really excel as a blind developer (accessibility testing, performance optimisation, security, ...).

Roel


--
Roel Van Gils
Inclusive Design & Accessibility Consultant

Tel.: +32 473 88 18 06
Skype: roelvangils
Twitter: twitter.com/roelvangils
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/roelvangils


> On 14 Sep 2017, at 06:29, karthik k < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> thanks for your valuable comments, I've learned front end development
> very recently from a w3c recognized institution, however, i am not
> able to do the assignments given by them. say if the assignment is
> about html tags or forms, the trainer is just sending images, i don't
> even know what's there in the image. how can i proceed
> in this case? and, do visually impaired who work as front end
> developer face similar challenges? how to overcome this challenge?
> can we use any other application to read the image? i think the image
> contains a design which is expected to code. Am i correct?On 9/13/17,
> Bryan
>
>
> On 9/14/17, karthik k < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> thanks for your valuable comments, I've learned front end development
>> very recently from a w3c recognized institution, however, i am not
>> able to do the assignments given by them. say if the assignment is
>> about html tags or forms, the trainer is just sending these kind of
>> images, i don't even know what's there in the image. how can i proceed
>> in this case? and, visually impaired who are working as front end
>> developer, face similar challenges? how to overcome this challenge?
>> can we use any other application to read this image? On 9/13/17, Bryan
>> Garaventa < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> Yes it is possible, though it's important for employers not to expect a
>>> blind front end engineer to be able to accomplish all of the same levels
>>> of
>>> visual design that a sighted person can such as visual styling entails.
>>> Unfortunately as a result, many in the field don't think this means that
>>> a
>>> blind front end engineer can do the same level of work as a sighted one,
>>> so
>>> they are often overlooked in the job market. This is ironic however,
>>> because
>>> speaking personally I have skills as a blind front end engineer that only
>>> the smallest percentage of the total pool of front end engineers globally
>>> have, which is that I know how to make front end components that are
>>> guaranteed to be accessible for the simple reason that they have to be in
>>> order for me to use them, and I don't see the point of building anything
>>> that I can't use myself. So blind front end engineers specialize in the
>>> field of functional accessibility where focus management, keyboard
>>> functionality, and intuitive user interaction is the most important
>>> aspects
>>> to concentrate on, whereas in contrast the majority of sighted front
>>> engineers focus on sighted and mouse related functionality and are often
>>> surprisingly lacking in basic knowledge regarding these skills, which is
>>> the
>>> primary reason why most of the most popular frameworks and libraries are
>>> still inaccessible to this day even though all of these concepts have
>>> existed for many years.
>>>
>>> Here are some tools that I use daily for these tasks.
>>> http://dlee.org/bx/bx.htm#intro
>>> I use this for DOM rendering analysis when applying CSS, markup
>>> examination,
>>> and MSAA/UIA accessibility tree examination when applying ARIA and the
>>> like.
>>>
>>> This is a code editor built specifically for blind programmers. I've been
>>> using it to write all that I have in the last ten years.
>>> https://github.com/jamalmazrui/EdSharp
>>>
>>> I guess I'm somewhat of a minimalist. Others here can provide additional
>>> tools to help.
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>> Bryan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Bryan Garaventa
>>> Accessibility Fellow
>>> Level Access, Inc.
>>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> 415.624.2709 (o)
>>> www.LevelAccess.com
>>>
>>>