Being a deaf developer

When I saw the headline, he immediately hooked, because I have a deaf-and-dumb relative. The topic of accessibility is currently quite popular, but many developers and managers avoid this discipline. This happens because they do not see the point, and some even benefit from the work done for such a small audience. This is a totally wrong proposition. Accessibility should be a design culture.

The article had an interesting word Grokker, which is not translated anywhere and for which I did not find information in runet. Perhaps, many habravchane also do not know, so I will share my personal little discovery. Grok - means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes part of the observation. And Grokker, respectively, is one who can understand this. In general, this is cooler geek. It is rather a geek. In short, I even registered one domain, because I believe that the word can come into use.

I have been deaf since infancy. This is not in absolute terms. My hearing loss is moderate to severe. The problem occurs when the high frequency bands , on which human speech takes place. I rely on lip reading and the definition of vowel structure in order to understand spoken language. The main difficulties are:

• Recognition of consonants, especially hissing and deaf consonants (all consonant sounds of high frequency, and deaf and hissing consonants do not use the vocal cords )
• Phrase start
• End of phrase

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Some deaf people have successfully become programmers . This is mainly mental work, often single and where all the results are documented. Specifications and bugs come to you (at best) on paper or in the ticket system, and not from the “noise holes” of other people. But, of course, not everything is so fabulous (I see you, constant meetings at a large round table of 15 people), but it is always possible to adapt.

The existing stereotypes about programmers that they are some kind of eccentric with an allergy to a human company are unfair and unreliable. As a group, we are a very social society. We write to blogs, speak at conferences, compile teaching materials and teach others. And this is not news, if not to talk about the atmosphere before the arrival of the Internet in Bell Labs, MIT and dozens of other R & D organizations. I love this world of social code when I have the opportunity to surround myself with competent enthusiasts, which is an important moment on the way of becoming myself as a professional developer. But there is one thing from which I always feel closed - it is a pair of programming.

Pair programming, in principle, is amazing — it's like Rubber Duck debugging on steroids. You work with a person who knows more than you and is able to teach it or with someone who knows less, but is able to appreciate your leadership, or even with someone who knows as much, but he can discuss the solution of the problem with you. Plus, you know, it's fun. You will recognize your colleagues. You come to the realization that all the time from time to make mistakes. You have a person who will stop you if you want to download a snippet of code that you do not need to download.

But when you are deaf, the dynamics and pleasure from work disappear nafig. For me, from the cooperation of the pair more harm than good. Trying to think about the code, look at the screen and at the same time try to understand the lack of contextual speech of a mentor in spoken and technical English - this is a 30% probability of failure. In the end, I begin to look gloomily at an even more disappointed mentor and give up control of the task to him, since this is the only way to make progress in solving the problem. Mentoring makes things worse. And the partner tries to see the continuity only on the screen, because it is difficult to think about the code and the methods of communication. I know it! I know. Therefore, I try to be a passive participant, and a colleague does everything for me. This is not good for each of us. Ugh!

I had a great opportunity to work with Rowan Meining on the Pa11i project — an accessibility testing automation tool made for Nature . Using Screenhero , we set up a remote pair session, so that we could both see the screen and communicate using text without creating confusion. This was the first time I worked in a pair as it should be. It is difficult to name the difference. Hearing people cannot appreciate how much information is lost when working with a deaf person. Imagine that you live in a city where in any book that you would start reading, about 60% of the words were crossed out with someone using Sharpie (for example, a popular markers company ). Now imagine that on a weekend you went to a nearby town, where (fortunately) no one does this and you can suddenly read books entirely, without anyone’s help. This is something similar.

Other story. In Nature, we have a development team that truly pays great attention to accessibility.
The principle of ensuring equal access to more than 400 sites Nature underlies everything we do. Tim Berners-Lee says that, “The strength of web technologies lies in their universality. Access for all, regardless of disability, is an important aspect. "We all agree on this. Shaking of accessibility is common everywhere. While working at Nature, I received unprecedented support from my colleagues in the form of notes, live-tape meetings, ball method , help me keep track of who is now speaking in the group discussion. They also pushed me to get support from Access to Work . For 3 years in Nature, I received more substantial support for my disability than in the previous 34 years of my life!

The ability to work with these Grokker accessibility in Nature is wonderful. They do not create bad judgments about abilities and provide full default access. They bring accessibility experts to test our sites and make recommendations. They diligently apply WCAG standards and create tools that simplify the implementation of these standards. When they meet a disabled person on the same team, they are doing absolutely everything to make this person their new full-fledged member.

Accessibility is considered a niche discipline. It should not be. People with disabilities are considered by developers as a negligible part of the audience that does not deserve attention. We are not like that. Equal access is a right.

If you provide it, you do it on the Internet, and in the world, better for everyone.