I am almost totally blind from birth, due to a genetic disorder known as LCA. My vision is limited to unreliably perceiving light level at a very low resolution, such as whether it is day or night outside. To overcome the challenges this creates, I use a wide variety of adaptations.

Screen Reader

A screen reader is a piece of software which uses synthesized speech to read aloud the contents of computer applications. I interact with user interfaces using the keyboard, and the screen reader then provides different kinds of spoken feedback; such as the word I typed, the line of text I moved to, the menu I opened, and so-on. In particular, I am a Linux user, and I use the screen readers Orca for graphical applications, and Speakup for the console. There are also similar applications for smartphones, and I use TalkBack for Android. Over many years of practice, I’ve learned to understand my screen reader at a fairly high speed. I usually listen at a comfortable rate of around 700 words a minute. (Yes, it is speaking in English.)

Braille

Braille is a tactile writing system for the blind. A braille glyph is made up of six points organized into two columns of three, each of which can be raised or flat. Glyphs are then evenly spaced and organized into rows. Braille text is produced on thick paper, by punching holes in the back of the paper where raised points should be.

Alternatively, refreshable Braille displays are electromechanical devices which display one line of Braille at a time, by raising and lowering round pins representing points through a metal grid. They are generally used in combination with a screen reader, which sends them the text to display from a computer.

Although I like and use both Braille books and Braille displays, I prefer screen readers for the most part, because Braille volumes are cumbersome and much slower to read.

There are many Braille encodings, but the ones I primarily use are English contracted Braille and the Nemeth encoding for mathematics.

Mathematics

Screen reading technology generally has poor support for mathematical content in PDF documents. I usually have to read math texts in LaTeX source, which is much more accessible because it is a text-based format. In particular, Wikipedia and the nLab are great accessible resources, because you can always access articles in source form; and the ArXiv usually makes available the source files of submissions. More recently, screen readers have been implementing support for web-based mathematical content, such as MathML and MathJax. This has gotten pretty good, and I usually prefer it over reading TeX files; however it can still be challenging for very long and involved expressions.

Programming

Programming is about as accessible a pursuit as you can ask for, since all you need is access to a text editor and a terminal, both of which are very well-supported by assistive technology. My screen reader indicates indentation levels and punctuation, which I use to help navigate around source code files. My workflow is otherwize mostly the same as that of a sighted developer who favours using the keyboard.

Guide Dog

I use a guide dog to help me travel. She is trained in following relative directions, avoiding obstacles and other pedestrians, stopping at curbs, finding stairs, and many other minor things that help keep me safe on the road. She also learns our common routes and travel patterns, and can then predict where to lead us without my direction. She wears a black leather harness when she is working, to identify her as an active service animal. You should never engage with service animals when they are working. They are not machines, so it will cause them to get distracted, and this will jeopardize the safety of their owner.