The realization barrier

I will humbly submit that realization could be classified as a barrier and why?  Because in my humble opinion, unless one is either forced to realize or is unexpectedly made to do so; this remains a barrier.

It is similar to the concept of walk a mile in my shoes and please allow me to clarify the picture.

So often and too often a person would honestly try to be either nice or try to feign understanding or compassion or some similar feeling when asked for their opinions on a topic or subject with which their familiarity is lacking or weak.  All well and good but in reality they do not understand and cannot understand unless they are directly related to the topic or subject at hand or have a friend, family member, or associate who is.

Or better yet; if they themselves live the circumstance.

I see this so often.  Especially so when a person is asked to participate in accessibility development.  No amount of reading up on this topic would help to clarify the picture.  It would definitely help to familiarize the person with accessibility development but in the final analysis this is as far as they can go.

There is nothing wrong with this but what could and would help is if the individual involved would change their approach to seek assistance from someone who lives the circumstance.

In other words:  I urge developers to redirect their thinking to follow this approach.

If you have never lived the circumstance in question, then be strong enough to go out there and obtain the relevant literature.

Next, seek out the expertise of someone who lives the circumstance.

Finally, put the two together.

It’s like this!

No one expects you to fully understand what it is like to use a screen reader to access the Internet.  You can try to understand by closing your eyes and this will definitely help but the complete picture would not become clear to you unless you were forced to either live it or to be close to someone who does.

In other words; unless you live a particular circumstance, you should not claim to fully understand.

Just my two cents for today.

To learn more about me as a sight loss coach visit www.donnajodhan.com

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