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What It’s Like to Be a Blind Architect

Chris Downey

It was only several years ago when Chris Downey woke up from surgery, blind. Any architect in his position would be forgiven for shrugging off the overwhelmingly visual profession and moving on to something that blind folks were “supposed” to do. But Chris did not give up so easily. Seven years later, Chris remains a practicing architect and consultant for numerous projects, including our newly announced headquarters in downtown San Francisco. He is also a LightHouse board member, and a great example of how newly blind individuals can stay focused, defy norms, and move on with their lives and goals with the same effectiveness and purpose as anyone else.

Read Chris talk about what it’s like to draw, design and practice architecture in the new July/August issue of Dwell Magazine.

This Weekend: Get Paid To Test BlindSquare

blindsquare logoDo you use the BlindSquare App to get around SF? Want to get paid to give feedback? Look no further.

The LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired of San Francisco is working closely with the developer of BlindSquare, a popular navigational tool within the blindness community, to integrate a set of accessibility features (related to San Francisco Muni transit stops) into the BlindSquare application. We will be gathering feedback and data through a series of paid, in-person studies with current BlindSquare users.

We are targeting the weekend of July 18-19 to conduct the research. Scheduling is flexible, and sessions could take place mornings, afternoons, and evenings throughout the weekend. You should plan to devote approximately 2 hours to the study.  Space is limited. If you would like to participate, please answer the following survey questions and send your responses to Frank Welte at fwelte@lighthouse-sf.org:

1.     How would you describe your vision?

a.     No usable vision for navigation

b.     Some usable vision for navigation

2.     Do you own an iPhone?

3.     Do you use the BlindSquare app?

4.     How often do you use the app?

5.     How often do you travel independently outside of the home?

Thank you for your participation, and please spread the word!

Start The Music: Accessible Festivals Are A Reality

the Accessible Festivals team

It’s summer, which also means it’s Music Festival Season, and last week a coworker at the LightHouse sent me a Salon.com article which I read with great interest. It was called: “‘You are not welcome here’: At concerts and music festivals, fans with disabilities are too often shut out, endangered and ignored.”.

As a blind/low vision person who makes music, wrote about it for a living, and has attended dozens of music festivals, I was eager to compare my own experience of concert-going with the author of the piece. As it turns out, she is a good enough writer, with optimism for an inclusive future, but the overall tone of the piece (most notably the title) greatly misrepresents the reality of the situation, and discredits how far musical events have come in the 25 years since the passage of the ADA.

The last several years in particular have seen tons of progress in the accessibility of music festivals, and if you read further, you may be convinced that, even if you’re completely blind, there is a place for you on the polo fields of Coachella, the ferris wheel of Treasure Island, or the foggy enclaves of Outside Lands.

First, it’s important to dispel the misattributions that support the Salon.com article. In the story, the author details several circumstances in which she was discriminated against as a disabled concert-goer: a parking attendant refused her a handicapped spot, an usher scowled and denied her an elevator, and so on. These instances are certainly regrettable, but to be bluntly honest, the problem does not actually seem to be with the venues themselves — which were equipped with said facilities — but are in fact caused by a lack of communication between humans.

If you have a so-called “invisible” disability, such problems will plague you not just at concerts and music festivals but literally everywhere you go — unless you come prepared with a communication device. Even if it’s just a little 10-second speech, well-rehearsed and easy to understand, you need to have a believable way of informing people of your situation. As blind and visually impaired individuals, we are fortunate to have the white cane, which accomplishes all of this crucial communication in a single sighted glance. And in all my experience at music festivals around the country, I have not only never been treated poorly with the cane, but I’d even argue that my experience was even better than most.

But it’s not just about blind people having a particular advantage. Austin Whitney, a law student at UC Berkeley and paraplegic since 2007, founded Accessible Festivals in 2014 specifically to ensure that people with disabilities — any disability you can imagine — are accommodated appropriately at music festivals in America and all over the world. Whitney first worked as a consultant, starting with Goldenvoice (who put on events such as Coachella and Hangout Fest), and eventually realized that his skills were not only useful, but in high demand. Now he works year-round in addition to attending law school, and employs dozens of people at individual events across the country, particularly in summer months.

Talking to Whitney, he says that the range of disability that he and his team can accommodate is only expanding. “It’s everything from 18 year olds with a temporary disability like a broken leg to 90 year olds with an air tank,” he said. Other disabilities also include dietary considerations, physical and mental differences, as well as deafness and visual disabilities. “90% of my work is just problem solving,” Whitney says, “It’s just talking to people one-on-one. What are the problems, how can we mitigate them, how can we make this work for you?”

By all measures, Whitney’s work has been a success. In the years since he’s started attending festivals, things have changed dramatically. In 2008, for instance, he and his wheelchair had to be carried, by his friends, separately down the bleachers of an entire football stadium in order to make it into the general admission area for the Electric Daisy Carnival Festival. Last year, Whitney went back to EDC and employed seventeen people to serve 200 attendees with disabilities — almost double the previous year’s number. Word, he says, spreads fast.

Accessible Festivals is not only trying to make sure festivals meet basic legal requirements, but ensure that the events are actually comfortable and enjoyable for disabled patrons in new and creative ways. “You can have an ADA compliant festival, but it doesn’t mean it’s very welcoming to people with disabilities,” he points out.

For people with visual disabilities or blindness, Whitney admits he’s still learning what the best accommodations are, but has come up with some great new solutions as of late to improve the blind experience of festivals to a great degree. The first of these is braille set times — because even though much of that info is available on smartphones, large music festivals tend to be black holes for cell reception, and nothing beats a hard copy when your iPhone battery is dead.

Whitney and his team have also started to offer blind and low vision festival-goers personal orientation tours of the festival grounds, in order to get them familiar and comfortable as the venue fills up and the lights get low. As soon as the gates open, Whitney or another employee will happily take a blind patron around the area, show them where everything is, and even go so far as to explore all the food options and talk about menus, maybe even meeting certain vendors, before the herds of people arrive later in the day. In the crashing din of a festival environment, often our usual methods of listening and talking can reak down, which could make an advance orientation particularly valuable. This, in my own opinion, is a great accommodation; It’s something that even your sighted friends might not think to do for you.

Whitney says it’s all about being a creative problem solver and not being intimidated by new situations. Recently, when a low vision girl and her boyfriend could not get close enough for her to appreciate any of Taylor Swift’s dance moves, Whitney recruited two of his staff and two more festival security employees equipped with flashlights to escort the two, VIP-style, to the front row. It’s not a typical accommodation, but as someone who’s toughed it out at lots of inaccessible festivals — riding on peoples backs and all — Whitney says it was a service he was happy to provide.

In all, Accessible Festivals will have a presence at 35 music festivals in 2015, and odds are there’s one near you. Whitney doesn’t want anyone with a disability to be scared anymore, even if things prove to be more difficult than they should be. “Festivals are making an effort,” he says, “Go out to them — I’ve been to a lot of festivals where my disability wasn’t accommodated but I still had a good time. Sometimes you just have to go with a good attitude. Some bull—- might happen, but I don’t look back on any of them as negative experiences.”

Questions, comments or feedback? Leave a comment below, or email Will Butler at communications@lighthouse-sf.org.

What I Learned at Blind Bootcamp, Part 2: Why We Meet

Valli Ferrel, one of the program's first students, leads a tour of Spring Mountain Winery where she directs PR

This is Part 2 in a series. Click here to read Part 1.

by Will Butler

Earlier this week I started writing about what it’s like to immerse yourself in our adult training retreat at Enchanted Hills Camp in Napa. Now that it’s over, you’d think it’d be easier for me to sum up in retrospect, but the truth of the matter is I’m still processing it all. The amount of information that was given to us was immense. The strength of personal connections made between all the students, aged 25-77, was unlike anything I’ve ever seen occur over the course of five days. The disparity between how we behaved when we arrived and how we behaved when we left was remarkable. The skills, tools, and adaptations we learned were all custom-made, personalized little gifts  — in many ways, they won’t mean anything to our spouses or family or friends — and it’s hard to imagine ever describing it to someone who wasn’t there in a way that’s meaningful. But I guarantee that if you stumbled upon the twelve blind folks eating dinner at Gott’s Roadside on Thursday evening, you’d recognize immediately that they had been through something special together.

But enough vagueness; if you’ve read this far I’m sure you actually want to know: what did we spend all our time doing? The truth is, we learned how to live on all levels, from the most mundane to the most abstract and emotionally elusive.

Getting better at everyday tasks (which in these circles is called independent living skills or ILS) was, at least for me and a few others, a priority. For starters, we had an entire session dedicated to helping you find stuff. Boring as it may sound, these are the questions newly blind people find themselves agonizing over: If I drop a pill bottle, what’s the fastest way to find it? Can I wipe down a counter and be sure it’s clean? How do I put in the right batteries? How do I shave? With our training shades over our eyes for anyone who still relied on some eyesight, we were taken step by step through these everyday simplicities and reassured that, yes, there was an easy way to do all of them. Later on, we did this with cooking as well, cleaning, chopping, and preparing dozens of pounds of marinated vegetables for dinner, all the while learning blind-oriented knife skills, measurement and identification techniques. I was surprised to find that my cooking skills were better than I would have thought, and that discovery if nothing else was worth the class. Suddenly, when I get home, I wanted to cook again.

At another session, we went in-depth on labeling and organizing, talking strategies but also getting hands on with solutions. Many blind people eagerly embrace new technology, but simple, low-tech hardware and quick dollar store solutions are still mainstays of everyday adaptation. Stickers, high contrast cutting boards, talking calculators, magnets, velcro, buttons, bumps, signature guides, safety pins, sock locks, knife holders, innovative dishware, extra-thin silicon oven mitts and above all rubber bands (for tagging shampoo/conditioner bottles, etc.); there was a never-ending list of items to add to the efficient-living arsenal. These are things that blend in, seem obvious once suggested, but are also ideas I would never have come up with on my own. We also exchanged advice. How exactly do you deal with the grocery store? What do you do when your husband wants help dressing himself? How do you sort your clothes? We were all at different levels, and yet we could all relate. You’ve never seen a group so eager to talk about their dresser drawers.

This is not to make it sound like it was all low-tech either. Personally, as a Mac person I’d been putting off learning JAWS, the screenreader software which is PC-only and also happens to be the industry standard for word processing. To me it seemed daunting, unnecessary because I am low vision and not totally blind. And yet, put me in front of a PC and I’m admittedly useless. To my surprise, our tech instructor Julianna had me up and running (and surfing Facebook) without any visual cues within an hour. That’s the power of having a human teach you how to do these things. It was about getting advice and giving it. If you knew something someone else didn’t yet, it felt good to share your strategy with them. Though the solution may be simple you could feel that the other person really deeply appreciated it.

Tech solutions were different for different people. Some brought touchscreen devices, iPhones, iPads or laptops that they wanted to get better at using. Others learned how to load up their Victor reader (another portable, more tactile audio player) with documents, podcasts, books and news. For some, it was enough to learn about Wilson, the compact voice memo recorder that could help them keep notes and to-do lists, or the Pen Friend, a smart audio pen that allows to record your own labels. And with the absolute surge in the iPhone’s general popularity in recent years, the motto of the week seemed to be “there’s an app for that.” Nearly every month now an app comes along that can significantly change a blind person’s life. Apps such as KNFB Reader, Tap Tap See, Be My Eyes, and hundreds more have absolutely proliferated, and we couldn’t live in a better time for cool blind tech. This is what Sydney was responding to when she exclaimed with joy and relief in our very first solutions session.

It wasn’t simply about taking down a list of items to buy, either. This was one of the first opportunities some of us had to try stuff out and see if it worked. You could sit down with one technology, play with it for a while, then try an alternative. All of it was at our fingertips, in one room, all week long.

Because of the nature of my vision, mobility has not always been a problem for me, but even so I met with Katt Jones for a one-on-one assessment. We talked about everything to do with cane travel; some things I had picked up naturally but didn’t know the names for. She showed me a more elegant and efficient way to locate doorknobs. She corrected my technique approaching and scaling stairs. We talked about “how to train your human,” or in other words, how to help people help you. She took me to downtown Napa, where we walked back and forth across a massive intersection, analyzed the ins and outs of curb cuts, and then went to Trader Joe’s. Some things were new, and for the things that weren’t, it felt good to have a certified O&M instructor tell me confidently that I was doing things right. Even walking around the grocery store alone, I already felt more comfortable than usual, even if it was just in my head.

There were also the more interpersonal, emotional discussions. What to do when a loved one says something hurtful, how to hold your own in household duties, and how to be honest and expect honesty back were all topics we explored. Then came the embarrassing stories, the stories about humility and moving forward with grace, the stories which will not be published here.

The week really showed the wide range of experience within the blind community. There were those with degenerative conditions, people who had been in accidents, victims of violence, and some with less explicable or diagnosable visual impairments. There were those who had lived full, vibrant lives and those who were just beginning their journeys. There were kids from low-income backgrounds alongside retired college professors. And all of them went through some sort of metamorphosis. For some it was just social, and for others very physical. There were adult students too timid to take one step on their own when they arrived Sunday evening; and within days, even 24 hours for some, they were calmly navigating the hills and paths of Enchanted Hills entirely by themselves.

The big takeaway, for me, was that the best learning comes from peers and role models. Jamey Gump’s teenage counsellors in training were right there along side us most of the week, and it was pretty cool to see their training mirror our own. They looked to each other as everything from mentors to mere curiosities, and above all just people they could feel comfortable around. We all stood in a line on Wednesday night and did the “cookie challenge,” wherein contestants tilt their head back and race to get an Oreo from their forehead to their mouth with no hands. One of Sook Hee Choi’s deafblind students was the winner. Thursday night there was a talent show, which involved jokes, skits, a tap dance, and a no-holes-barred Billy Joel-esque piano ballad from Shane, EHC’s arts and enrichment counsellor for the summer. In the morning, all the kids and adults — each their on their own training program — mingled like happy campers. Kids who I had earlier assumed were completely blind approached and said cheery hellos to me of their own accord. And, kept busy every day from breakfast to sunset it wasn’t until about the time I left that I stopped and realized how much I’d been enjoying the whole week.

What I Learned At Blind Bootcamp, Part 1: Keys To The Cage

EHC tactile map

by Will Butler

Lying on a firm twin bed in Cabin 8 on Sunday night, I remember thinking “why did I come here again?” I didn’t feel nervous, or sad, just a little bit at a loss. It’s a long drive up winding Napa roads to get to Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind, and though I had committed to it weeks before, I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place. I felt like less a person, more a confused animal. I could tell some other people were feeling the same way: of the other eight adult students who came for the training retreat this week, many were similarly hunched, quiet, hats or sunglasses covering their faces, unsure how to act. Some had only been dealing with changing vision for a couple years; others had been coping for decades. And on the first night, overloaded with information and in a new, unfamiliar (dimly lit) environment, everything felt jumbled — up in the air.

Then it all started to fall into place. The first thing you realize about Enchanted Hills is that there are almost no stairs. The paths run seamlessly into one another with paved trails spanning the rural acreage and leading straight into the many different buildings. Everything has its place, from the dinner bell to the dog patch, and though there’s not much that would signify that it’s a camp specifically for blind people, everything is designed, subtly, with the visually impaired in mind.

But most of all, when you step outside with your cane, no one does a double take. No one rushes to your aid. No one second guesses where you’re going — even if maybe you are a little lost at the moment. There are no arbitrary barriers limiting where you might roam. Doors aren’t locked or obstructed. Living in the city as a blind or visually impaired person, these are the small but many roadblocks to which you become slowly accustomed.

We’re here all week. This is Changing Vision, Changing Lives, the new immersion training retreat for adults at Enchanted Hills. The program, which started about three years ago, occurs now every few months and focuses not on swimming, horseback riding and foosball (though those things are here too) but on education, skill-buildlng, and talking openly with peers. Some people describe it as simply a first taste of the blind learning journey, but truly, if you haven’t had any experience with other blind folks before, it can feel like you’re drinking in a lifetime (or multiple lifetimes) worth of information in just a few days.

Everyone gets something different out of immersion. Some of us are here to get better at cooking; others want to brush up (or start learning) orientation and mobility skills; some of us want to get back to work; others just want to know how to download and read a book. We’re going to do all of that this week — and I’ll talk more about those things later — but when you first get here, it’s just a matter of taking in all the ways that living amongst the blind, amongst peers, is profound, a little bit jarring and ultimately enlightening.

There are so many things out in the “real world” that, without really noticing, I’ve come to accept as routine. A big one is the constant nagging knowledge that everyone sees you and you can’t see them. It’s a kind of one-sided mirror, that makes so many blind people feel caged. It’s a zoo that devastates them and keeps them from acquiring all the skills and benefits that they deserve. Here at camp, you can walk into a room at your leisure and rest easy. There is no pressure to put on an act, to try and look healthy or happy, to perform for anybody. If you need help, you simply ask and someone inevitably can provide it. No one will try to feed you. This, admittedly, is a little scary for a newly released blind person, but if you can take control of this newfound independence, it’s intoxicatingly fresh. Moreover, no one is scrutinizing your appearance against your blindness, which means you can rest assured because blindness is not anomalous, but assumed. Sure, this isn’t the “real world” that most of us live in, but I imagine that, if you can get comfortable in your own body here at a retreat, and leave CVCL with some newfound confidence, that’s more than half the battle.

“I didn’t even know all this stuff existed!” — that was Sydney, who has low vision and until today hadn’t used a cane. We were sitting around a table getting an overview of a bunch of technology, and she was understandably overwhelmed. Acronyms and proper nouns abounded: JAWS, ZoomText, KNFB, TWAIN, CCTV, Victor, SARA, Bookshare, VoiceOver, the list goes on. We’ll get into all that later on, the tech instructors assured here. No need to take notes. The important thing is just sitting down and hearing that there are solutions. There are answers.

It can be undeniably overwhelming here. I’ve been told that on Wednesday nights there might be a breakdown or two. Often, it’s not even a typical, “negative” breakdown though. One man recently was reduced to tears, not because he was sad or upset, but because he had such a powerful revelation not only that he was much blinder than he realized, but that all the answers were just at his fingertips.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. At lunch today, Janet knocked a glass off the table. Magically, it didn’t break, but it rolled to who knows where. It being made out of glass, of course we had to find it. But there was no sighted person around to ride in and gallantly rescue us by pluck it off the dining hall floor. So we had to hunt. Janet was on hands and knees, some of us tried using canes, feeling, listening for the sound of the glass. The problem was that because it was a cylinder, every time the cane touched it the cup would roll farther off. There was a moment there when I genuinely thought we were going to give up. I stood back and laughed out loud, and I wasn’t the only one. Maybe it didn’t exist anymore. “Here it is!” Janet exclaimed suddenly. Problem solved. And no one had panicked, cordoned off the area, or pushed all the blind people out of the way to retrieve it. There was nothing wrong.

This afternoon at the swimming pool I talked to two blind, college-aged camp counselors about the word “inspiring.” In case you don’t know, that’s a touchy term in the blind community. We finally agreed that if someone says “you inspire me” it’s a lot less icky than if someone says “you’re an inspiration,” because the latter of those turns you into an object, a show for the sighted rather than an active agent in the enthusiasm of others. After I left them, I realized that, as a young person myself, I had never had a discussion with anyone younger than me who was blind.

Tonight, twelve more youngsters arrived. They’re here as part of the counsellor-in-training program, that will prepare the dozen 16 to 20-something year olds for spending the summer at camp mentoring the even younger kids who will arrive soon. It’s a cycle that’s been going on for more than sixty years now, and I can say without reservation that I’m so glad to be at least a small part of it.

Finally tonight we took a walk. Earlier they passed out “training shades,” which are really just sleep masks from the dollar store — mine was cheetah print — and encouraged us to try them on from time to time. Often, we’re told, residual vision can be distracting. It’s fine to use your eyes if you have them, but if you rely on it entirely, you’re bound to find yourself in some tough situations, especially once night falls.

“So now is a great time to put on your training shades,” said Kathy Abrahamson, who runs CVCL. We were standing in front of the dining hall at dusk, about to take a short perimeter hike around the grounds, and she wanted us to go fully blindfolded. Half of the students didn’t have to wear one, because they were already there. But I did, and along with a few others, we put on our cheetahs and zebras and relied solely on the input from our canes. It may surprise you to hear, but nothing went wrong.

We walked out the breezeway, past the lake, up the hill, and under the canopy of some dozen seventy-year-old olive trees. Once the trees loomed overhead, we all stopped. You could hear them above, even forty feet up, shaping the sound of our voices, our steps, and of course our mobility tools. We continued strolling and George Wurtzel, the camp’s new construction manager who has been blind since birth, eyed an invasive Eucalyptus, which he says will soon meet the steel of his chainsaw and become fodder for our brand new woodworking shop, now under construction. Kathy gave us another challenge: “I want you to tell me when we get to the spot where we’re in between two buildings.” That seemed a little more daunting, but even with only fifteen minutes behind the blindfold, when we hit the point in the path a hundred feet later, the sound of the structures on both sides was obvious. There were those among us who didn’t want to take a single step on their own when they arrived the previous day — and now they were identifying parallel buildings at twenty feet away.

When I finally took off my blindfold it was dark outside. We sat in the Kiva room, around a big table and, from my photos later on, everyone looked more relaxed. Their faces were open, contemplative, even smiling and laughing. We talked about everything from gardening to writing academic papers, going around the circle sharing tips and voicing our curiosity to learn more about sorting clothes, hardboiling eggs, using GPS and whether or not we’d buy that Apple Watch. Our O&M instructor Katt Jones, one of the few fully-sighted people in the room, recommended “The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up,” a book which probably anybody could find useful.

Because if there’s anything I learned in the first 24 hours here, it’s that this isn’t really about blindness. That’s only what may feel confining at the moment. What it’s really about is seeing the humanity through the situation. And I think that’s why people who have been blind or visually impaired for as long as sixty years still find it useful to return here to Enchanted Hills. For them, I think, it’s the best possible reminder that you are a human, like everybody else, with a regular human ego and human problems, and escaping the initial, claustrophobic side effects of blindness is just the next big break.

Read Part 2, “Why We Meet,” here.

Will Butler is the Media and Communications Officer at the LightHouse for the Blind. Follow him on Twitter or email him at communications@lighthouse-sf.org.

Calling All Blind Writers

slate and stylus

Blind writers: LightHouse wants to publish you!

The LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco is putting out an official call for submissions. We are in search of the best and brightest writers who are blind or have low vision, to contribute stories for publication on a paid, freelance basis.

We want to hear first-person stories not merely about blindness, but about what it takes to survive and strive as a human. We want to establish a new venue for exploring direct experiences surrounding the often misunderstood and under-appreciated aspects of blindness. Ultimately, we aim to be the most contemporary, honest and passionate source for people to learn about blindness from those who walk our walk.

We will consider submissions from both novice and professional authors. Whether you have a page ripped from your personal journal or a rejection from a literary journal, we’re open to all styles and subject matter. The most important thing is that it’s honest, unafraid, and rooted in an experience of visual impairment.

What We’re Looking For

We seek to publish dynamic personal essays, memoirist reflections, travel writing, incisive commentary, specific advice, funny or useful lists, arts writing, general humor, insightful analysis, new ideas and anything else with verve and honesty.

Story ideas can be just that — an idea. You don’t need to send us a finished product or a fully-formed narrative; we’re happy to work with you to get you there, in fact we’d prefer the process to be a collaboration from start to finish. That said, submissions can come in the form of a completed document, a brief pitch, or just a friendly introduction and statement of interest. Once we feel confident that you have something to say, we’ll work closely with you to shape it into a great piece of writing.

What We’re Not Looking For

We don’t have much interest in political rants, takedown pieces, sob stories, brand promotion, medical diaries, or extraneous embitterment. The purpose of this new direction for the LightHouse Blog is to highlight talent and elevate voices. We seek to build a strong and lasting support structure, and in order to do that we must celebrate fresh viewpoints and positive representations as much as possible.

We also understand that sometimes writing about blindness — or anything personal, for that matter — can be very demanding. It can dredge up deep and painful memories or confusing emotions. We encourage writers not to run away from those emotions or conflicts. Rather, explore them with a clear head and conscience; write it down, and then show us what you’ve written.

Priorites and Policies

We seek first and foremost to publish writers who are blind or visually impaired, with an emphasis stories based in California and the west coast. That said, we are open to any and all writers who would like us to consider a submission.

Submissions will be edited by Will Butler, who has written about his own eyesight in essays such as “The Mark of Cane” (New York Times), “Blind at South by Southwest” (VICE), and “In Blind Judgment” (The Toast).

We pay $100 for essays published on our blog, with payment issued upon publication. To negotiate for particularly long or ambitious pieces, you’ll need to talk with our editors on a story-by-story basis.

We can’t wait to read your work.

Email all submissions to

wbutler@lighthouse-sf.org

with “Pitch” in the subject line

questions: (415) 694-7309

Other Examples of Short Works by Blind Writers

“At the Intersection of Death and Disability” | Serena Olsen, Blind Broad Abroad, 2015

“A Friday Night of Bartending, Without the Lights” | Nicole C. Kear, NY Times, 2014

“How to be Helpful: 3 Snapshots from a Day” | Erin Lauridsen, Life in Braille, 2013

“Beauty and the Blind” | Georgina Kleege, UNESCO Courrier, 2001

“Sensory Overload at the Biggest Rattlesnake Roundup in the World” | Ryan Knighton, VICE, 2013

“The Barrier of the Visible Difference” | Kenneth Jernigan, Gray Pancakes and Gold Horses, 1998

Why Google Comes to LightHouse for the Blind

braille_logo (3)

Here at the LightHouse, we visit a lot of tech companies to find out first hand what they’re up to, how their offices look and feel, and ultimately to foster an open, nuanced conversation about what they are working on.

Last week was a little different because, on the occasion of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Google visited us instead. Ben Davison, a user experience researcher at Google, came to our office in San Francisco to chat with blind and low vision smartphone users about what works well for them and what could be improved when it comes to the Google product. This, we believe, underscores one of the most crucial take-home points of designing good, accessible tech — that is, just showing up and listening.

Ben’s work does not focus exclusively on accessibility but generally on improving the experience of technology for all users. On Thursday, he carried out what we hope will be the first of many usability studies with some of our current and former students, running them through everyday Google searches, then observing and recording to see where screen readers or magnifying software ran into trouble.

So what prompted this visit from our neighbor? The LightHouse has resources that Google wants to tap into: specifically a vast network of accessibility users, thinkers and innovators under one roof.

”Imagine you wanted to test your product with five people who use screen magnifiers,” says Ben. “In order to go about this, you would have to find your users in the area, build trust, collect five study agreements, work out transportation to the site, provide an accessible test site, and work out transportation back home. “

“The LightHouse has all of these on tap: a strong network, trust, a convenient location, and an accessible place. These kinds of partnerships are invaluable to a researcher like myself in understanding the needs of our users.”

Ben received his PhD from Georgia Tech with a focus on accessibility and spent time at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta. This experience has undoubtedly given him a special insight into the value of good accessibility for this community of avid technology users, and we’re glad to see that Google values this, too.

We look forward to the next time we can get together with Google, and more people like Ben from other tech companies, to share ideas and feedback on improving these valuable tools in a way that just works for everyone.

If you’re a technology developer, a visually impaired person, or just a conscientious user, please don’t hesitate to contact us about how you can benefit from our services.

Follow us on Twitter and read more at Google Accessibilitiy.

“Double Stopping” is Muni’s Newest Rush-hour Remedy

civic center station

Muni riders take note: Starting Sunday, you’re going to need to know what Double Stopping is. Basically, sometimes druing rush hour, two trains will arrive instead of one at major Muni hubs. The key takeaway here is not to rush wildly back across the platform in order to get on the second train: Just wait at the front boarding area and once Train 1 leaves, Train 2 will pull further up so you can board. The new protocol, which will start May 24 for many trains heading downtown, is designed to help people get around faster and not miss trains. Now let’s hope it works!

It’s important to note that at Civic, Montgomery and Powell Stations, this means the “boarding area” for Muni trains is going to move — about the length of one train car — in the direction of travel. So don’t be confused if your train now boards about 75 feet ahead of where it normally stops.

More from the SFMTA:

What is Double Stopping?
Double Stopping is a new feature which will allow passengers headed Downtown to get to their destinations faster during periods of heavy congestion in the subway.

How Does Double Stopping Work?
When two trains arrive at the same time: Double stopping allows two trains to stop at a platform and open their doors at the same time. Train 1 will pull into the front of the platform to let customers on and off. All trains will stop at this new boarding location. Train 2 will pull in behind Train 1, allowing customers to get off the train immediately. As Train 1 leaves the station, Train 2 pulls forward to allow customers to board. All Trains will stop at the new boarding location, for your safety, board your train when it pulls up to the new boarding location. Do not run the length of the platform to catch the second train. It will stop again at the new boarding location.

Where Will It Happen?
Double stopping is planned for inbound trains at Montgomery, Powell and Civic Center stations where platforms are long enough to allow two trains.  This feature will only occur at times of heavy congestion, most likely during your morning and evening commute. 

For more information, visit www.sfmta.com or contact 311.

For questions or concerns, contact Project Manager Kenny Ngan at 415.701.5487 or via email Kenny.ngan@sfmta.com

Persistence Over Ignorance

apple store

“Honestly, it’s not that great,” the sales rep told me last week. He was trying to make me go away.

This was at my local Apple Store, where I was hoping to try the accessibility features of the new Apple Watch. If the device turned out to be as life-changing as the iPhone, it would certainly be worth the price tag. The display models at Apple currently run a video loop, demonstrating — for those who can follow along visually — how the Watch’s features work. But for anyone who wants to use the accessibility features — VoiceOver, zoom, and voice commands — you need a fully-enabled Watch, tethered to a real working phone.

But this guy wasn’t selling anything; he would rather I walk away. When I asked for a fully-enabled version, as I’d read is available, he balked. He said they didn’t have anything like that at that store, and he could get someone to show me the demo version, but it wouldn’t be any good for me. “Honestly,” he said, “the accessibility features are not that great. It’s just VoiceOver, and a couple other things.” He obviously didn’t know what VoiceOver meant to many people.

Perhaps the Apple Watch wasn’t the right product for me — or anybody for that matter — but somebody else was not going to make that decision for me.

I was miffed, but resolved to try again a few days later. In the meantime, I got an emotional email from a blog reader, responding to our post from the week before where we reported that Apple wants blind people testing the Watch. This particular person had followed our instructions and called the Apple support line to see about scheduling an appointment to test the accessibility features of the Watch; but got no help at all.

“I was very embarrassed,” they wrote to me, still annoyed from their interaction with Apple, “the man that I spoke with acted like I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Normally I would turn on my journalistic skepticism here, but after my experience the day before, this sounded all too familiar. Still, I was hearing conflicting reports. Multiple readers wrote in to say they walked into their local Apple Store, many without any appointment, and were taken through all the accessibility features, with no problems whatsoever. What explained this gap in treatment from place to place? For Apple being the biggest, most tightly controlled corporate chain in the world, it almost seemed like we were dealing with different companies.

A few days later, I was back at the same Apple Store. I asked a sales rep the same questions — could they please show me a fully enabled Watch? — and got the same, uncertain answer: Let me show you to one of our trainers, and they’ll show you the demo version. I allowed myself to be led over, and once I got to the different person, I asked again. She gave the same, canned response, but I kept my cool. This wasn’t her fault, she just didn’t know, I told myself. “I’ve been told that every store has a fully enabled Watch,” I suggested, “I read online that Apple wants blind people to be able to test the Watch.” She didn’t know about it, but I had checked my facts, so I kept asking, politely, and in different words each time.

Finally there was a tipping point. She paused, thinking more creatively. She thought for a moment and came up with a different answer.

“We have a workshop model…” she said slowly. She said it was for the store employees to experiment and learn with. That sounded like a better lead than any. “Let me go ask if it’s available,” she said.

She came back in two minutes with the workshop model, beaming, “I asked my manager if we could borrow the workshop model to show you accessibility, and he said,” — wait for it — “that’s exactly what it’s for.” All along, there was a simple solution, but having not yet encountered a blind customer, hardly any of the employees knew about it. I was vindicated, and she seemed relieved to have been able to help.

“We have all these guidelines that we’re given,” she admitted candidly, “but we go around them all the time.”

As for the Watch, it’s fun, but I can’t weigh in yet. The accessibility features are very similar to the iPhone, and if you’re already used to operating the phone without looking while it’s in your pocket, or under a table, strapping a new screen to your wrist does at this point seem a little redundant. Also, if you’re like me and the biggest pain about VoiceOver is taking ear buds in and out, you’d be much better off investing in a nice wireless headphone setup than immediately springing for a new piece of hardware like this one. I still need to be convinced that the Watch is a useful tool, and that might not happen until my friends start showing them off.

I tell this story not to advertise the Watch or disparage Apple, but to remind everyone that when it comes to dealing with the blind and visually impaired, most people are terribly ignorant. It’s not that they have a vendetta against the disabled, or a superiority complex, they’re just uninformed about how to reach the right solution. Even at Apple, one of the most tightly-managed shopping experiences in the world, there is still a widespread lack of understanding and training about how to treat those with disabilities.

To be served, we have to push. Not aggressively or with self-righteous assertions, but patiently, quietly and with purpose. The solutions are there, the answers are relatively easy, the gatekeepers just don’t know it yet.

Contact Will Butler at communications@lighthouse-sf.org.

Ever Had Problems with a Rideshare or Taxi App?

a collage of rideshare apps: Lyft, Uber, Flywheel, Sidecare, etc.

Here at the LightHouse, we want to help focus the conversation on apps and accessibility. The logical place to start, it seems, is with transportation network companies (TNCs), which use apps with great success to provide new transportation options.

When you need a ride, who do you call?

The blind community has lots of strong feelings, both positive and negative, when it comes to “ridesharing” apps. These apps, such as Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, FlyWheel, and others, have come to all but replace the old taxi system with a form of transportation that’s cheaper, faster, and, if you know how to work a smartphone, far more convenient than calling a cab. Members of the blindness community have proven to be some of these technologies’ earliest adopters and biggest fans; some of us even attend public hearings to speak in favor of the startups that inhabit our city and make it easier for us to get around.

But even with the best innovations come new roadblocks. In particular, some rideshare companies have not done a very good job of educating their drivers (most-often independent contractors) about the stipulations of the ADA, which makes it illegal for places of public accommodation to deny someone service based on a disability. Many specific issues are going to court, but for every case that ends up in the courts, we know there are dozens more stories that are untold.

This is our call to the blindness community, both in San Francisco and internationally, to weigh in with your feedback about specific rideshare services — not to comment on the recent Uber case per se, but to tell us personally what you’ve experienced as a visually impaired person, using any and all of the available options now on the market.

Which app has the biggest problems? Which ones are doing everything right? Did you ever feel discriminated against? Perhaps these apps have only changed your life for the better — we want to hear about that, too!

To share your story, good or bad, you can comment, send us a message on Facebook, Tweet at us, or even email our community manager directly at communications@lighthouse-sf.org. This is about ironing out the rough edges, celebrating what already works, and making sure that we will live in a future where we can expect all the same rights and enjoyments as the rest of the public. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback!