Trouble with Tech

There are days I would wish a vision loss on others just so they can see what it is like. Not very long, of course, I am not, after all, that sadistic! Maybe, say, for an eight hour work day? That should be plenty.

Technology drives me insane

Technology drives me insane a good part of the time. To begin with, it is not my natural environment. While I am better than some - particularly those older than I and technophobes - I am worse than your average ten year old. It doesn’t come naturally. I just don’t “think tech”. What is intuitive for that ten-year-old makes no sense to me.

Weird and often insensible

For example, I had my office manager tell me where the reply button was on the office email. Where she said it was, it wasn’t. I had to get on FaceTime with the office assistant to try to determine what I was doing wrong. It turns out we have to go to “All Mail” and then click on the message to be able to reply. Weird. How is that sensible?

Magnification on every device

Then there is the vision bit. I have magnification on every piece of technology I own. I have said multiple times, the magnification can be a curse as well as a blessing. What is covered on my screen is about a quarter of what is covered on a normal screen. It takes me four times as long to find anything.

Challenges of a magnified view

Our tech person “remotes in” to check things. My screen gives him fits! He is always “yelling” at me to reduce my screen! He cannot find anything quickly. Welcome to my world! Of course, when I reduce the screen so he can see things and he asks me to click on something for him.... You got it. I cannot see a thing because it is all too small. Fits redux.

Then, of course, I magnify it again and we do the same old song and dance one more time.

Signing documents electronically

Today I was sent a document to be signed electronically. More fun and games. It took me three tries to get it right. In addition to not being able to find a dang thing on the screen, the boxes in which I was supposed to enter things were so large they obscured the instructions. If I made the screen smaller, I could sort of see the instructions but not well enough to actually read them.

App limitations with screen magnification

When I have my screen magnified there are some applications that will not allow me to scroll or to use my keypad. I am constantly magnifying and reading and then shrinking and scrolling. It seems like a total waste of time but it is the only way I have found for things to work.

What's easy in the sighted world is not easy in mine

People think I am an idiot. I can tell by the way they respond. “It’s right there!” No, it is not. Not on my screen, it’s not. On my screen it has “fallen off” the desk top and I need to hunt for it. Even hunting I might not see it if it falls into my blind spot. What sighted, tech savvy people think is easy, is not easy for me!

So, yeah, I would like people to have to experience this. You can’t “get” my world until you live there for awhile. Easy in the sighted world really is not easy here.