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Ask HN: How to get an accessibility tester job as a blind programmer?

352 points by blindprogrammer ↗ HN
I want to test accessibility for apps and websites as a job. I regularly use pretty much all screen readers except Orca, I use VoiceOver for anything Apple makes, JAWS or NVDA anything Windows, and Talkback in Android. I haven’t had a formal education on accessibility, but I use these screen readers to navigate websites and apps daily, so my skills is pretty good. I also like coding in Java, I love that language, I consider Java the best language since C. I only code in Java, because I can’t C (a little joke). So, if you have an app that you want their accessibility tested, let me know I will do that for you: I currently only own iPhone, though.

So, HN, who wants their accessibility tested for their website or apps for blind people or low-vision people?

92 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] thread
leipert
As far as I know, there are special agencies that help companies or government agencies with their accessibility goals. I assume they have a more diverse set of employees and would be open to hire you.

When I looked into hiring someone for a company directly, I was told that because of HIPAA laws you cannot advertise „we want to hire blind programmer“.

blindprogrammer
That makes sense, because that would be discrimination. But I wonder how Hooters can get away with only hiring "models" whatever that means? But I think the term "attractive" is a lot more liquid than being "blind" which is rigid and legally defined. Thank you for your comment, really helpful.
modestmc
Your joke was good, alas my sense of humor is a little rusty.

Hopefully my delivery there sounded good on your end, I have no helpful advice but best of luck!

just-tom
Whoever downvoted you clearly didn't read the whole post and thought you we're referring to the post as the joke, not the actual joke inside it.
bcx
We (Olark YC S09) are in the process of building out a fully accessible platform for realtime communication (live chat, bots/automations) for both agents and visitors, and regularly work with folks to help our team test and improve our work -- it's still early days Progress Not Perfection :).

I am definitely interesting in talking, you can apply as a tester here: https://www.olark.com/ada-accessible-live-chat

And you can ping me personally on Linkedin if you want to chat more. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencongleton)

We work with both individuals often as contractors, and agencies as well.

You might want to talk to the folks at lighthouse SF, they do consulting for a lot of tech companies, and have a matching program, I am actually going to be at their offices Thursday, so I can follow up with best way to get in touch, but I'd assume the emails on the below link will get you what you need. https://lighthouse-sf.org/programs/access-technology/

And we've also worked with Fable who manages engagements like what you are looking for: https://makeitfable.com/community/

blindprogrammer
Thank you very much for your offer, I will apply the tester job. Lighthouse SF, that's pretty interesting, I may contact them for opportunities. My Email is in my profile, so if you see any opportunities, let me know. I really appreciate for taking the time to write this and giving me the chance for this opportunity. Thanks.
forgotmypw17
I develop a FOSS project that prioritizes accessibility, and I haven't had any screenreader testing in a hot minute. I would appreciate even a little bit of testing.

How can one contact you?

SimonPStevens
Have you tried working freelance? I've had several big projects in the past where we've had accessibility requirements to meet and it always involves training testers and developers in the tools. I'd have happily paid a someone to consult on best approaches, run the tests, maybe train a few people to keep it going.
blindprogrammer
Couple of people in here already have suggested I start an agency that consult accessibility, so I will start that soon. I have to get couple of classes on accessibility to check off some formal education checkmark, because a lot of people won't take me seriously if my professional opinion isn't backed up with some sort of formal education. Even though, I use screen readers daily to write code, to read articles, even to do some light editing with iMovie since I have few remaining eyesight.
SimonPStevens
The formal certificates will help in some situations, but don't assume you need them for everything right from the start. Speaking for myself, I would have happily hired a consultant with the experience of being blind themselves over anyone with a certificate.

Another thought is that for one of the projects I had the accessibility requirement came from the UK government. It was a project being used in a public service department and it was a requirement for them that every bit of software they purchased was accessible. If you're in the UK you may find the public sector is a good place the look.

matsemann
When I've done frontend work for government agencies, we have contacted the national association for blind people in my country, and gotten help from them (Norges Blindeforbund / The Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted). Could you perhaps reach out to a similar organization where you live and tell them of your services, so that when others reach out to that organization for help they can refer them to you?
blindprogrammer
That is really a good idea! I live in USA, each state have their own state IT department that handles all IT stuff. So, if I email people who work there, they could refer some work to me.
BaudouinVH
I am currently working alongside blind/vision impaired persons that are auditing/coding web sites for accessibility. Do you live in Belgium by any chance ?
tomashubelbauer
I worked alongside a blind programmer in one of my past teams and AFAIK the company hired him as a consultant and found him through his work in my country's organization for blind people. I'd highly recommend joining such a group in your area as it seems likely they will be able to get you in touch with companies. If the group is at least somewhat big, chances are they'd have been approached by companies before. (They had been? They'll have been? I am not sure what tense to use. ESL)
mkl
"they'll have been", since you're using present tense ("is"). If you'd said "was" instead (not correct for this statement, just an example), "they'd have been" would be right.
richrichardsson
This a tricky one.

> If the group is at least somewhat big, chances are they'd have been approached by companies before

The approaching took place in the past, so I'm not sure I follow why using "is" makes anything present tense other than the conditional clause? The group must be "at least somewhat big" in the present for the conditional clause to be true, and the main clause is somewhat separate.

The expansion of "they'll have been" is "they will have been", which sounds perfectly fine.

In my mind the expansion of the original sentence would be, "If the group is at least somewhat big, chances are they would have had been approached by companies before". In spoken communication you would likely drop that "had", but it's also perfectly normal to contract it as OP did. But in written form I think it's too much of a stretch to replace "would have ha" with an apostrophe.

jgwil2
Re grammar, "they'll have been" works but I would just keep it simple: "chances are they have been."
nicewarmvalley
One blind accessibility tester i had the pleasure working with got his position at a national government agency by sending a complaint about the poor accessibility for blind people on their websites. The response was an invitation to a job interview!
blindprogrammer
Interesting, I always thought those complaints usually go to unanswered email inbox, but if people actually answer these, I may try writing to these governmental agencies sites and apps.
nicewarmvalley
He probably had great timing/luck with his complaint, but I guess an open application with an agenda disguised as a complaint can be effective if it reaches the right people at the right time. Good luck!
pushfoo
You may want to reach out to Dr. Sile O’Modhrain (https://smtd.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/sile-omodhrain/).

She is a highly experienced blind researcher & a co-founder of NewHaptics, a tactile display startup (https://www.newhaptics.com/).

Even if you want to focus on accessibility testing rather than hardware, Dr. O'Modhrain may be able to connect you with useful guidance. I would also mention your programming experience in case NewHaptics is looking for someone to help with testing hardware, firmware, or drivers.

blindprogrammer
That's really interesting, a blind researcher doing hardware? that's really impressive. I actually was doing a hobby project where I wanted to create a height adjustable desk with Raspberry Pi, but I didn't finish because I couldn't find vertical actuators: I will most definitely contact to the Dr. Thank you!
2rsf
Maybe one of the crowd testing platforms? what you offer, accessibility testing for vision impaired people, is important and (should be) done in every company for every product an iteration but in reality it is quite rare. A company don't test accessibility for every small change and release, so you'll need to either find a team with a lot of products or offer your services to different clients.
blindprogrammer
Yeah, you are right accessibility is one of those edge areas that most companies don't make it a priority. But in the U.S there's a federal law that requires if you have a website or an app that is meant for public use, that website or app must be accessible to blind people, Dominos was sued recently for making their website not accessible to blind folk. It is like of those issues where companies don't act until the government forces their hand.
andrewstuart
Write about your work.

Post it everywhere. LinkedIn, Reddit, your blog.

Start every post saying your looking for work.

hahamrfunnyguy
This ties right into what my advice was going to be: start a consulting practice to help organizations make their software accessible by performing audits and providing recommendations. Come up with a menu of services w/pricing and post them on your site. An option that's a few hundred bucks or less could be a good mechanism for generating new clients.

This is a service that people would use, and because you're a stake-holding user it makes it much more valuable than one of those companies that runs an accessibility tool and summarizes the results.

Having worked for a software consulting company that's built accessible software in the past, your testing service offering would be valuable but probably not something that a full-time position would have been created for.

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sydd
Try to look for jobs in edtech. To be able to use a software in a US classroom its a hard requirement to be accessible, so edtech companies are always on the lookout for a11y engineers.
blindprogrammer
Yeah, in my area there are couple I already applied for, but they didn't respond because I didn't list the required BA or formal education they wanted. But I won't give up, I will keep trying. Thanks.
oulipo
Can you tell me more about your setup for navigation and coding on Windows, I'm interested because I need to help someone who lost his sight learn keyboard typing and coding
blindprogrammer
I currently don't own a Windows machine, but when I had a Windows computer, I would use InteliJ IDE for my Java programming, I also use Android Studio for making Android apps. JAWS, one of the paid screen readers works both programs really well. Visual Studio (ironically named!), is surprisingly accessible both in Windows and Mac. One other screen reader, although I don't use it much is called NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access) which is free. Other programs that are really accessible is Sublime Text, at least for me.

I will make a video describing all the programs I use daily to write code as a blind programmer in YouTube channel.

fvztdk
You can try to reach out to Lucas Radaelli https://twitter.com/lucasradaelli for conseling, he is blind and developer at Google and works with accesibility projects.
blindprogrammer
Blind Googler! really awesome, I would contact him, even though I don't like much using Twitter. Thanks.
miohtama
Posting on HackerNews is a very good start! (:

Hopefully one the comments yields to an offer.

blindprogrammer
Yes, I thought HN is where smart people hang out. At first, I thought posting on Reddit, but for some reason Reddit isn't what it used to be, the demographics of Reddit is different, the topics and discussions is different, it seems to me Reddit's users are younger nowadays compared to Good Old Days.
rightbyte
From a practical point, won't it be hard to know if the app is working if you can't see e.g. a field that the reader skips?

It might be outweighted by that you are good with the tools though.

nkrisc
> From a practical point, won't it be hard to know if the app is working if you can't see e.g. a field that the reader skips?

It wouldn’t be a very good test if they weren’t first provided with the expected outcome…

Klathmon
Can't you say the same thing about a sighted tester who misses a field that the developer forgot to implement?
blindprogrammer
That's actually a good question, accessibility testing is meant for blind people, so what I will be testing is whether the component on the screen is readable by the screen reader. For example, one company that really makes all their apps accessible to the blind is Apple, every component, every gesture you could possible make sighted or otherwise is described by the screen reader (VoiceOVer). One company that has a poor accessibility, in other hand, is Chipotle. In my iPhone whenever I am using to order from the Chipotle app, I have to use the magnify the screen to see my remaining vision, otherwise VoiceOver won't tell me what the menu says. I am surprised Chipotle hasn't been sued for this since the app is straight up not accessible to totally blind people.

One other fast food company that has a really good accessibility (at least in iOS) is Mcdonallds, every menu item is described extensively, and I could order anything blindfolded. Hey, Chipotle, follow McDonald's path and Apple, and make your app accessible, otherwise some blind guy will sue you in a federal court for not offering accessible shop for your restaurants.

mittermayr
I currently don't have a concrete opportunity for you but maybe something to consider: I occasionally teach at universities, and students often learn about accessibility as a general topic but have zero insight into what it actually means, as in: how a real person with an actual disability is using assistive software. I sometimes show them YouTube videos of people explaining their screen readers. I am sure that universities could be interested in some kind of package, where they bring you on remotely, perhaps, and you can do a live session of reviewing something students designed, or talk to them about things most apps/websites tend to get wrong (are cookie nags extra annoying/complicated to deal with to you, or do you even stand a chance at unclicking some of those tracking options, how about apps without buttons, mostly controlled by gestures, etc.). As a teacher, I didn't know even where to start reaching out to someone (at the time when I wanted to do something about it) who could actually show students how they "see" (or not see) those websites and apps. Again, I think this is something you should most definitely get paid for (it's super valuable), I didn't have the ability to get a budget at the time, but would have had a much easier internal pitch for it if there was someone already offering this as a package deal kind of thing. Like, a 2 hour call before a project, then students work on it, and you come back in for another 2 hours at the end of class / semester to review.

Anyways, I'm rambling on, but I always felt like this is something that would be valuable and also struggled with connecting the right pieces to make it happen.

If you're into web development, too, or maybe even just Notion could work, would be a potential indie project, too — a "hand-crafted job site / market place" of accessibility services / experts."

blindprogrammer
Thank you for that suggestion, I never thought that kind of teaching opportunity. Yes, I already have a YouTube channel that I post Java Tutorials, so I may start "reviewing apps in accessibility focus", that's really a good route, thank you for pointing out this. I can create websites with Flask & Django, but my styling CSS is not good; because I can't seem to find the right ways to layout a website, I always create a website that is '90s-style, which is not what the vast majority of people want nowadays.
mittermayr
You should consider putting your YouTube link into your profile here, if you feel that could be of use, just in case someone is curious.
migf
I have two leads for you. DM me for details.
password4321
You have to put contact info in your profile manually.
blindprogrammer
Can you please email me, my email is found in my profile. Thank you.
karpour
Do you have any contact info? If you're available for freelance work, I'll note down your contact, since we plan to do accessibility testing in the future :)
blindprogrammer
Yes, my contact email is in my profile. Please contact when you have an opportunity for me, thanks by the way.
dten
My company does tons of accessibility testing, and I imagine that someone who can code too would be a big benefit. I’d be happy to talk in dms, I can get you to the right people.
blindprogrammer
My contact email is in my profile, please contact. Thanks.