Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Yuniskis wrote:
Of course, I still felt bad for asking such a stupid question.
But, it forced me to think about the problem and keep it in
mind when I design things.

Asking stupid questions can help you get a feel for their problems.
I repaired some low vision cameras & monitors for a school system years
ago. The looks on the kid's faces when they could read again was
priceless.

When we would install a Reading Machine at a new site, it
was always "priceless" to watch the expression on the client's
face as they first started using the machine. The synthesizer
was *really* had to get used to -- the stereotypical "computer
voice". You could see the client straining to make sense
out of these grating noises coming from the speaker. The
inflection was suboptimal, prosody was stilted, etc.

But, there would come a point where you could *see* when they
had started to understand complete sentences. Their eyes
would literally "light up". You could almost hear their thoughts
afterwards: "Now I can read ___________ without having to get
someone to read it *to* me!"

(Libraries carrying materials for the visually impaired had
dreadfully small collections at the time. And, waiting
lists for popular titles would often be *years* -- Braille
is expensive to produce; synthetic forms are "hard on the
hands". And, anything current -- like last *month's* news
paper -- are almost completely unattainable due to transcription
times and costs.)

I can remember a client grinning that he would now be able to
read Playboy (which seemed like doubly funny -- "Does anyone
actually *read* those magazines?")

For example, 1 in 15 men are color blind (to some extent).
Ask your kids' teachers if they know that figure. In practical
terms, it means that one boy in each classroom can't reliably
distinguish colors. Do they know that when they formulate their
lesson plans? "How many red balls are in this picture? How
many green balls are there?"

"Press the RED button to shut down the nuclear reactor in
the event of a disaster. Press the GREEN button to restart it."

"Cut the red wire to disarm the warhead." of course, I've made a lot
of wiring harnesses out of a single color & gauge to keep people from
messing with them. I hated spending half a day repairing a test fixture,
just to have some moron screw it up. When they open it up and see over
100 light green 22 AWG stranded wires, they didn't try to 'improve' it,
to pass a bad module.

The military used to place a special premium on color blindness
ages ago. Most camouflage is easier for a color blind person
to spot than for someone who is not. I guess the perception
of color aids to the confusion of what the mind sees.