Technology has opened a lot of doors when it comes to employment for the blind. Everyone is encouraged to develop computer skills if they are to have a chance of finding any job in the future. Which brings up the question. How do blind people use a computer keyboard if they can’t see the keys?

Being able to use a computer today is almost an essential skill for anyone. You need to be able to operate one to shop online, fill out job applications, do your banking, reserve train, and airplane tickets, book hotel rooms, and keep up with your friends. It is possible to do all these things without a computer. However, computers make life a lot easier and offer a lot of employment opportunities for the vision impaired.

So, how do blind people know which keys they are hitting if they can’t see the keyboard? The answer is quite simple.

If you are like almost anyone who attended high school, at some time or another, you had to take a typing class. In my day, I used a typewriter. Those attending school today use computers running word processing programs. No matter what machine you use, the goal of the class was the same. Learning to read what needs to be typed as quickly and accurately as possible while not looking at the keyboard.

Is it coming back to you now? The technique used by the blind to enter information into a computer is called Touch Typing. The same skill used by every student in every typing class. No mystery here.

Instead of choosing not to look at the keyboard while typing, the blind person simply uses touch typing to get their work done. You may be asking, “But, how does a blind person know what is on the screen?”. That topic will be answered in a future blog post.

Just a personal note about some of my experiences working with people who think that typing is a big challenge for the vision impaired. I can’t tell you the number of times well-meaning bosses and coworkers thought that keyboards were inaccessible to me and thought I needed special equipment like speech recognition software or a Braille keyboard. Thanks. But, no thanks. Not necessary. Give me a basic computer keyboard and I will have no problems getting my work done.

Sometimes, the sighted community thinks (based on poor information) that some tasks are just too complicated for a blind person. They think this because they have no idea how they would accomplish the tasks. So, to avoid problems, the sighted community simply excludes the vision impaired. This is evident in the extremely high rates of unemployment among the legally blind.

Computers make employment possible for everyone no matter your visual acuity. The difference between having a job and not participating in life is knowing the simple techniques necessary for you to participate fully.

Happy keyboarding!