Pro-vision and technology

- How many fingers am I showing?

Ahead loomed a figure in a white coat with a raised hand. The probability of guessing is only 17%, and better, I honestly admit that I do not see.

- Can you go back to the ward yourself?

Today I can already: I ​​see the contours of the doorways, but the numbers are not needed - I remember the location, and the rest is by touch. Although at first they were led by the handle, there was a case.



There is something to do in the ward. The neighbor was discharged in the morning, and now I can walk. Diagonally - six steps there and six back. You can also turn, for a change, first over one shoulder, then over the other. And if, moreover, you wave your arms intensively, then after ten hours they will begin to politely tug at your hand: "It seems that you have a walking workout, let's write it down?" Come on, come on. It is difficult to turn it on by yourself - you need to select one of the training types by touching, which periodically change places, lining up according to the frequency of use. I can turn it off - swipe to the right and poke it into the lower left corner.



"Tell me, Siri, what time is it!" - "It is now thirteen hours forty one minutes." However, as a child I could have been a little worse: "08" on a disk device blindly dial - a trifle. Today the talking clock helps and prompts. And even if lunch is brought with an accuracy of half an hour, you cannot skip the procedures according to the schedule.



Only a little worried that all the power of modern technology could collapse in a moment if the phone finally asks for a pin code. Therefore, I always try to apply a clean, dry finger to the sensor so that the miracle algorithm does not suspect something is wrong. I wonder if you can say the numbers out loud to unlock? But as? Would Face ID recognize me? I'll open my eyes, but there is a solid white fog in them.



Hello, Habr!



There was a post here that I was sincerely impressed with: "Developing at 450 wpm" . Having mentally digested the use of a computer blindly, in the comments to the original I found a link to the blog of the blind girl Molly Burke - more than two million subscribers. She told how she uses modern technologies - a computer, a mobile phone. How cleverly she did it then! And now I stare at the bluish rectangle covered with multi-colored blots, and try to remember how to interact with all this.



More than two billion live in the world people with visual impairments and tens of millions of blind people. I found myself in their world with one foot. There was no panic, so I calmly studied it from the inside. What activities are there worthy of an IT-schnick?

Blogger

The usual flow of events was interrupted, I dropped out of all work processes without any warning. My employees are probably worried and worried. We need to calm them down. I decide that the easiest thing in my situation is to record a video message.



Yesterday there was an operation, and I can see a little better. The letters on the screen are not readable, the icons of thin lines are not visible, but the record button is large, somehow I will get there. Editing is excluded, so you need to record everything in one piece. I come up with a text and repeat it several times, honing phrases on the go. I train first with myself, then with the camera. An hour and a half later, an acceptable take for three minutes is obtained. I hope I don't look too scary - I can't really appreciate it myself.



The only thing left is to send the video to Slack. You need to click "Share" (where the button is - I remember) and select Slack (you can even recognize the blurry icon). Hope the desired space and the general channel are selected by default. Further "Send" - hmm, like, top right? But something is going wrong. Either I am pushing the wrong direction, or Slack is weird, or the video is "on the wrong system."



I try another option - go to Slack itself and attach the video to a blank message. But this path is not for the visually impaired - the buttons are tightly glued, the UX leaves much to be desired. An assistant is needed here, homo sapiens! I request a video call and from my personal phone through the camera I show the screen of the worker, and my interlocutor guides my finger so that I get to the right buttons.





Try after try fails, but at the very last moment before complete despair everything works out. Set off, waiting for the likes! So I become a video blogger for a week, releasing news clips every couple of days, and searching for stories becomes a game.

Phone-phone!

I’m like in that joke - trying to achieve something by talking to my phone. In childhood it sounded funny, but now I'm not sure that the children will understand what the joke is. After all, you can really ask for a phone, for example, to call someone. It worked well. I recognized the callers by their voice. But I could not overcome this scenario: when I am talking to one person, and at this time another calls. I finish the first conversation and try to find out on the phone who called me. Either he is silent, like a partisan, or he starts calling the last number that I myself dialed. Can't find a common language. Because in everyday life I neglected voice control, and in fact it was possible at least to practice.

Neurobics

Neurobics is gymnastics for the brain, when you are engaged in an unusual activity for yourself or do familiar things, but in unusual ways. This is believed to help create new neural connections. You can do everything with your other hand, or with your eyes closed, or choose different routes home, or focus on the smells of the surrounding objects, or place yourself in an unfamiliar environment, or multiply large numbers in your mind - there are a lot of options, including meta tasks for coming up with new tasks. 2020 already drove everyone out of their comfort zone, breaking habits, and in the hospital, all neurosics only increased.



Close your eyes. You are at home, where you should know everything. Try walking to the bathroom and washing your hands. Interesting sensation, right? Or try filling a full glass of water without spilling it. I managed to pour water from a cooler into a bottle without looking. Initially I expected to detect the change in the pitch of the jet, but it was too quiet. Therefore, I did the cutoff when my fingers at the neck began to feel the cold of the rising water.



For people who have grown accustomed to smartphones and computers, I strongly recommend that they often contact physical reality in different projections.

Thinking

I have always believed that my main asset is my brain, and my thoughts, the ability to think and come up with something new will always provide me with something to do. This was confirmed this time too - I did not get bored from idleness. But I still had to seriously rebuild.



In normal life, phones and computers have surrounded us with such care that the skills of remembering and retaining information began to atrophy. After all, all the knowledge of the Internet, notebooks, reminders are always at hand. True, in my situation the inflow of new information from the outside is still limited, so the problem is slightly different.



The fact is that although thoughts and ideas are intangible in themselves, they somehow need physical embodiment in the form of concrete actions, formal documents, works of art, programs, or something else. Otherwise, overflow occurs and everything gets confused. If it is impossible to use an external buffer, to unload thoughts outside - to write down, fix - you have to keep the whole picture in your head. Memorizing becomes more difficult - the visual channel is blocked, the motor channel is limited. We have to return to the same thoughts in a circle, making sure that they are still in place - as inefficient as sorting in O (n²).



What am I thinking about? About work. I am writing a script for a series of videos about our applications. After the experience with video messaging, it becomes a little easier. I try to run our games on my phone: all the geometry is hopeless, but I suddenly manage to play Tchisla. Almost nothing is visible, but by clicking in different places, I solve several problems and get a gold medal. I came across a simple number, but I am still glad that the UX that we came up with is not bad.



I am trying to imagine how Euclidea - geometric constructions - could work for the blind. So that the program can describe the scene aloud, and the user can build new points, circles and lines with his voice. Will people be able to keep it all in their heads? Although many people know how to play chess blindly. In a geometrical problem, there may be fewer objects, but the connections between them are much more complicated and sometimes extremely unobvious - the task often consists in finding them. And if not-obvious, then are eyes needed?

Minus seven

New circumstances, even unpleasant ones, open up new opportunities. You need to try to get the most out of them. In my case, "minus seven" is not about eyesight, but about seven extra pounds that I left in the hospital. Three recruited for quarantine and four more "personally mine". Now I'll tell you the recipe.



Meals are strictly three times a day - at about 10, 14 and 17 hours. From sweet - only tea or compote. The portions are modest. I am sure that all proteins, fats, carbohydrates are precisely counted, just as the GOST prescribed, but this is little consolation. The coronavirus has added restrictions: the cafe downstairs is closed, transfers are made through a couple of buffer guards, and food is not allowed to be transferred.



In the early days, without visual confirmation, I could not understand what I was eating. Either pasta, or rice, or with chicken, or with fish, and this is either pickle, or borscht, or maybe cabbage soup. Everything tastes the same, almost without salt and without any spices - apparently, so that the appetite is not played in vain.



On this occasion, I came up with a joke for my video messages. Once we argued with a neighbor about lunch. I argued that the side dish was rice, and he said that cauliflower. But I saw for sure that there was something white in the container, not colored!





But a simple diet is uninteresting and untechnological. A smart watch that tracks activity helps. After all, you can't read a book, you can't watch a movie, you can't surf the Internet. The main entertainment, in addition to procedures and examinations, is to fulfill the "norm" in terms of training minutes and calories burned. The trick is that progress is displayed in the form of large colored rings, and I can already see them. So, in the morning - a mandatory charge. There are no lifts: from the fourth floor you go up to the sixth strictly by stairs, and through the first floor. While waiting for the queue for the procedures, I walk back and forth along the corridor. Fifteen minutes - and already a kilometer dripped. The most chic is running in the ward, while there is no one and the doctors do not twitch. The record is conditional 4.3 km in half an hour.



On a particularly successful day, the watch counted 21 thousand steps, about 17 km. In total, the "mileage" in the hospital was more than 100 km, and I get out of it without losing much of my sports form. And after that it became even easier to run - by as much as seven kilograms.

Epilogue

The discharge lasts all morning. Every doctor wants to take one last look deep into my eyes. And so I go out into the street. The St. Petersburg sky is wrapped in clouds, and I would not even guess which of them hides the August sun. But from a light too bright for me, tears still flow - the pupils will remain dilated for at least another month. Liberty! Or not freedom?



I won't call a taxi right away. I will walk several blocks with a brisk pace, breathing in fresh air and looking at the world that has become unusual through covered eyelashes. And at home I will immediately rush not to the refrigerator, but to the computer - to find out the question that worries me in recent days: can I? Yes, even if everything is blurred and the letters lack contrast, but these are trifles. IT life goes on! You will need to tell your story on Habré.



Acknowledgments



Taking this opportunity, I want to thank again everyone who supported me and, of course, the doctors of the Eye Microsurgery Center: Elena Vladislavovna Samkovich, Marina Vasilievna Gatsa, Irina Evgenievna Panova, Anastasia Yurievna Ulitina, Natalia Valentinovna Matsko, and I and many others - unfortunately I didn't even see everyone. If not for their professionalism and patience, everything could have ended much worse.