!!Con 2016 - How I Code and Use a Computer at 1,000 WPM!! By Sina Bahram
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters repeatedly share it because it is an eye-opening look at screen-reader use, and because at about 6:30 it addresses how inaccessible Hacker News itself is.
What it is
A short !!Con 2016 talk by blind developer Sina Bahram on how he uses a computer and writes code with a screen reader at about 1,000 words per minute. He plays how common interfaces sound and challenges the audience to go a day using only the keyboard.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2019 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec yesenadam · 2019-09 · on “Ask HN: Is anyone here visually disabled?”
Hopefully this will be helpful: I found Sina Bahram's talk at !!Con 2016 How I Code and Use a Computer at 1,000 WPM!! inspiring and incredible. He's blind and has his computer read everything out ridiculously quickly, and apparently gets input that way much faster than sighted people can read! Amazing. I use a computer very differently than most people, because I’m blind. When I’m surfing the web, tweeting, checking email, reading the news, and writing code, I’m doing so because a program called a screen reader is reading me what’s on the screen. I happen to listen to it read me this text at a thousand words per minute! Join me in listening to how I experience some common user interfaces. Ye
Strong rec yesenadam · 2019-12 · on “Blind software development at 450 words per minute (2017)”
There's an amazing 10min !!Con 2016 talk by Sina Bahram, How I Code and Use a Computer at 1,000 WPM!! I use a computer very differently than most people, because I’m blind. When I’m surfing the web, tweeting, checking email, reading the news, and writing code, I’m doing so because a program called a screen reader is reading me what’s on the screen. I happen to listen to it read me this text at a thousand words per minute! Join me in listening to how I experience some common user interfaces. Yes, I’ll slow it down for you. I also have a challenge for everyone in the audience. Can you get through a day only using the keyboard? What about not looking at your screen? Sina Bahram is an accessibil
Strong rec jonah-archive · 2021-02 · on “Let's Bring Spacer GIFs Back”
I recommend that everyone go check out Sian Bahram’s 2016 talk on computing while blind. At around 6:30 he specifically addresses how inaccessible HN is to a visually impaired user: [this video]
Strong rec jonah-archive · 2022-07 · on “For blind internet users, the fix can be worse than the flaws”
I would recommend that everyone go check out Sian Bahram’s 2016 talk on computing while blind. At around 6:30 he specifically addresses how inaccessible HN is to a visually impaired user: [this video]
Recommends jonah-archive · 2021-09 · on “Apple’s app review prevents developer from submitting fix to game for the blind”
Here's a talk by Sina Bahram from five years ago -- at around 6:30 he specifically addresses how inaccessible HN is to a visually impaired user. Nothing that he mentioned has been addressed: [this video]
Cites exikyut · 2021-10 · on “Ask HN: Is HN having problem keeping up today?”
For what it's worth, my own desire to see if I can help out somehow has definitely only increased over the past few months as I've noticed the messages at the tops of threads about pagination. I don't have any particular skills that would make me a hand-in-glove fit (eg, I'd need to learn Arc...), but surely there are tons of little boring things I could usefully do that would take the heat off. If I'm thinking this way, surely there are (many?) others...? For example, something tiny that I'd love to fix is to split vote() in half and move the UI update logic into an Image.onload handler, so that the UI only changes if the upvote absolutely committed. I'm OCD about this because I actually us
Cites exikyut · 2022-02 · on “Tell HN: You can see your vouched and flagged items”
I lost the video a while back, then finally re-found it. Here's a blind person showing how Hacker News sounds over JAWS: [this video] (Headphone warning: the volume is unfortunately all over the place, the screen reader is way too loud and the speaker volume is way too soft.) TL;DR, the page design places so much emphasis on visual table layout that it doesn't incorporate a single <h1> or <h2> anywhere , and it is effectively impossible to read the site rapidly without unconditionally listening to all the Hacker News. Page has 224 links. Hacker News visited Unlabeled graphic Graphic y18 link Hacker News link new vertical bar link past vertical bar link comments vertical bar link ask vertical bar