Recently I was trying to show this site to a blind friend of mine. Imagine my dismay when I realized that he was completely incapable of intaking any information from the board, information right in front of his face! Thus I have come up with a new board feature, one that will make it easier for our vision impaired users to participate in the community.

I think all posters should have special noises. For example, if I post in a thread and you click on the thread, my noise will go off every five to ten seconds. This will let people who can't see my screen name realize that I have posted in the thread. Think of barn animals. When blind people go to a petting zoo, how do they know that there are pigs or cows? They hear them oink and moo. This is similar, but obviously sounds will be adjustable user to user - one won't be pigeonholed into a certain sound (unless, of course, they're being disciplined by an administrator   ). There could even be options to turn the sounds off because I'm sure not everyone would enjoy it.

Thanks for taking your time to read my little musing.  

This thread has nothing to do with animals.

This is completely unreasonable, but if it was implemented, I'm sure we wouldn't be limited to noises animals make.  Everyone could pick a short melody from their favorite song, etc.

Brutus wrote on 05/30/10 at 18:43:40:

.

What about us Helen Keller types, who are blind and deaf? Maybe instead of unique sounds each poster subscribes to, they each have a unique hand gesture. This hand gesture is then interpreted by a mechanical arm that protrudes from Helen Keller's computer, so she can feel it as it makes the gesture, and she'll know who is talking in the thread!

An open fist that jerks up and down quickly? Goose must be talking in this thread! A firm punch to the groin? That's Brutus and his epic posts of silliness! A provocative gesture towards your sister as she walks by? Must be Alex moderating again!