Interview with the person bringing life to WiselyBlind.com
“It is hard to put my feelings into words as we launch WiselyBlind.com but I guess it is as simple as, I feel good! It makes me feel good. This is for my own happiness. I want to share the stories that helped you continue to live life so fully. I saw how much you needed to learn and how hard it was to get the information. I really believe this will help others going through the journey through vision loss.” Prasuna Avala, Co-Founder WiselyBlind.com
Joyce:
Meet Prasuna! We connected at work over ten years ago, often exchanging emails late into the night to keep our project on track. We built a trust that extended well after those status emails flew between our virtual desks. Instead, we began meeting for weekly walks sharing life happenings and life dreams. Although our years working together were far behind us, we often talked about building a website to share resources for people losing their sight like I was.
In 2020, as I was returning to the Corporate workforce, Prasuna was ready to start on the site we talked about for years on the domain name we brainstormed over a shared google doc .
Prasuna:
When you asked me to bring WiselyBlind.com to life, I knew WordPress sites can get up and running in a few hours but to be safe, I planned on it taking about a month. I would choose a template from the WordPress marketplace based on popularity and user reviews. Then I imagined it would be about one week of back and forth with you, two weeks of adjustments and we could go live. One month seemed like a reasonable target so I thought. That was over a year ago, before I realized that none of the directory templates were accessible for the blind community members who use a screen reader like you.
Joyce:
I knew Prasuna was a bit apprehensive about not having formal accessibility training but she embrace the challenge like I saw her do many times throughout our friendship. We initially explored hiring someone to build our site for us but it was too expensive for a site that would never generate any income. Our $59 WordPress template was an investment in learning about the root of the web accessibility challenge.
Prasuna:
It didn’t take long to install the WordPress template, simplify it a bit before getting your perspective through Jaws, your new eyes for digital content. I was not prepared for all the areas your keyboard commands skipped over or the silence when landing on buttons or form input fields. The problems of digital Accessibility suddenly became real to me. I didn’t want to let you down but I didn’t know where to go next.
I had learned enough to know I just needed to find the relevant code and make the fix with proper HTML syntax or ARIA attributes. I followed the trail to thousands of pieces of JavaScript generating the HTML for each component on the site. With remediation required so deep into the code, it was impossible to fix this feature rich site.
Joyce:
It did seem unbelievable. We chose one of the most popular templates in the WordPress marketplace. How could accessibility have been missed? I had to believe it was lack of knowing so I remember we reached out to the theme owner and offered to volunteer our time to help make the theme accessible.
Prasuna:
I was very happy with the theme support for installation issues so I was hopeful they would be open to addressing the accessibility issues once we let them know what the problems were. We were even offering to volunteer our time to help them. At first, the response was very friendly but once they realized what we were asking, we were told that the theme was not marketed as “accessible”. Asking the question myself and getting that kind of response verified all those stories you shared with me during our walks. It made it that much more important to get our site up and post the resources and stories that helped you.
I went back to the WordPress marketplace and, this time, looked for themes marked as “accessible”. I put away my mouse and checked to see if I could do everything using tab, enter and arrow keys. Finally, I turned on Orca, the screen reader I was using in my Linux environment and found that even the “accessible” themes did not make it pass the keyboard and screen reader test.
With everything going toward feature rich, complex websites we needed to focus on simple, straightforward information transfer. The feature rich sites were very hard to navigate without a mouse. It was a good learning experience that I think of whenever I visit a new website.
Joyce:
With the visuals of the site de-emphasized, what message do you think the site sends?
Prasuna:
I wondered about this myself, “what message am I sending to a sighted person with this site?” I don’t think I am qualified to answer this anymore. I stop thinking like a sighted person. Once I learned how to see through your eyes, I can’t go back.
Maybe a sighted person may think it looks unprofessional, maybe they won’t take it seriously. We can’t worry about that. It all depends on the audience. In our case, access to the information is the most important feature of the site. We can worry about the visuals of the site later.
Joyce:
That’s funny. Most sites worry about accessibility later. We didn’t have many choices that were accessible, that’s why we chose this very simple theme. Eventually, template makers will need to incorporate accessibility as a design principle from the beginning.
I guess this site has a Craigslist kind of approach. I don’t ever remember anyone ever complaining about the lack of visual design, it didn’t impact it’s success.
Prasuna:
Exactly true. No one complained about what Craigslist looked like when it was first launched in 1995. It’s actually still a great resource. I just posted some free Test prep materials and the student who came to pick them up was so thankful.
Joyce:
A great reminder as we launch with our Journey through Vision Loss video it is enough. One of my mentors said to me, even if it helps just one person, then it will be worth it.
Prasuna and I poured hours of our time and energy into this site. We hope that the articles on the site, spark an area you want to go deeper in. Here’s our first list of resources you might consider exploring after reading this article!
Resources to go deeper:
Accessibility Support Phone Lines You Should Know
Before you give up on accessing a website, get support to learn where the accessibility gap lies. It could be related to the code on the site, settings on your assistive technology, the browser you are using or any combination of these. Know that the accessibility problem is complicated and the best thing you can do is join in on solving the problem.
WordPress Accessibility Meetup Group
A great group of developers, designers and users interested in making accessible WordPress sites. The group meets twice a month with good topics and discussion.
Email Wisely.Blind@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments for us!