Working with the visually impaired/blind

[ValorNaram]

Hey,

do you work hand in hand with visually impaired or blind users to develop this project further and doing improvements?

If yes, then how is it going like getting feedback, working hand in hand with such people, is the communication via internet or also in real life? Do you work for an organization working for and with people with visually impairments?

[rastapasta]

Hey @ValorNaram,

beautiful question and thought - I indeed already reached out to the team of Bristol Braille which came up with (and produces) a very innovative dynamic multi line Braille interface:

They replied with a lot of love and details and pointed to their simulator and SDK for possible development.

But also they mentioned, that the line spacing might be an issue for a well graphical reading.
As a maybe better matching platform, they pointed me to the Graphiti project:

But its hard to get further information about it and their R&D status.

Besides of that, I got a couple requests for Braille based 3D printing projects and have some ideas about that in the pipeline ;)

If you have any other ideas let me know!
My heart would blossom if MapSCII could be any kind of tool for the visually impaired community!

[ValorNaram]

I have experience to get into the community of visually impaired is generally not as easy as I wanted to be.

I need to get into dialogue with visually impaired/blind because the information I found for making websites and other digital platforms accessible are not going into details like use cases, interactive elements. They are some specifications out there and "Aktion Mensch" (a german wealth organization) has a great spec file which contains many points which help me. But what I really need is going into dialogue, asking the community where they struggle and what are their ideas for improvement. And I need use cases, I need to understand how they interact with the digital world so I can use my empathy.

[jaller94]

I'll be at the Berlin OSM Hack weekend in Berlin (this upcoming weekend!) and am willing to collaborate on ideas, maybe decide on some hardware to order, reach out to some blind acquaintances and get PRs on their way or even merged.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Berlin_Hack_Weekend_Oktober_2019

[ValorNaram]

Okay, I asked some of my contacts and they will take a look into what you've made. Maybe we both can establish contact. It's not the right time yet to do it now but in future there might be the chance for you as developer of Mapscii. I hope the blind and visually impaired are willing to contribute.