[Blindmath] Does anyone know where I could find a blind accountant

Tue Jun 9 17:25:10 UTC 2015

Would it be possible for the professor (or an assistant) to divide each
spreadsheet up so that there is only one set of information on each sheet
within the document? (Sheets are sort of like tabs -- there can be more
than one within the document, but you can only view one at a time.) They
could use formulas that reference between sheets to link the related
information. It seems to me to be a reasonable thing to ask that the
spreadsheets be given to you in a format you can use. The screen reader
can't successfully give you row and column headers if there is a mishmash
of information in any given row or column.

I can imagine the kind of spreadsheet you are talking about, because as a
sighted person I make them that way for myself, but I can also figure out
how to keep each kind of information separate.

-Madeleine

On 6/8/15 5:21 PM, "Sabra Ewing via Blindmath" <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

>I was using jaws because that is what they have at school, but I have
>access to Jaws, NVDA, and a voiceover at home. I may have to switch over
>to NVDA because  jaws doesn't work that well in a virtual machine and I
>have a Mac with a Windows virtual machine on it. At school, I have a
>standard Windows 7 workstation.  If I really needed to be using NVDA or
>jaws all the time to maintain continuity, I could just try to do most of
>my work at school or I could run NVDA off my flash drive or see if they
>would just put it on the computer.  I contacted freedom scientific and
>they told me how to set it up within jaws itself to do the rows and
>columns. They said that there are times when it doesn't work to set it up
>from within the spreadsheet, and while I would like my settings to
>carryover with me to any computer I'm using, I can't afford for it not to
>work. Jaws does not detect any regions, and it did with other
>spreadsheets I have worked with, so that tells me that the ones I have be
> en given have not been divided into regions. If I could have anything I
>wanted and just creat it all with  magic, my spreadsheet would come
>automatically divided into regions. Each region would have the title of
>the task that it is meant for, and every time I crossed over to a new
>region, it would make a dinging sound followed by the title of the new
>region I am now in. Also, at the top of my spreadsheet, there would be a
>description of each region I can expect to find and which task it is four
>so that I would not miss anything. Also, shading would already be on and
>I wouldn't have to keep turning it on for every single spreadsheet. Now,
>you might just say explore the spreadsheet and I will figure it out, but
>I have tried that and I can't. I am not the best with spatial inferences
>and interpreting spatial information, and the way I have dealt with this
>in the past is to look for consistent patterns that I can look for a
>cross every spreadsheet so that it becomes intuitive an
> d I'm not having to process new information that is difficult for me.
>
>Sabra Ewing
>
>> On Jun 8, 2015, at 2:06 PM, derek riemer via Blindmath
>><blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Which screen reader are you using?
>> 
>>> On 6/8/2015 12:57 PM, Sabra Ewing via Blindmath wrote:
>>> The only way I can think of to do this, which I don't know how to do
>>>yet, is divide the spreadsheet into regions, then have my screen reader
>>>read the rows and columns separately for each region if that is
>>>possible. The problem is that when I first get a spreadsheet, I don't
>>>know what is on it so I don't know how I would divide the spreadsheet
>>>up without help. Another thing is that even if it were possible, that
>>>process is tedious and we get a new spreadsheet every class..
>>> 
>>> Sabra Ewing
>>> 
>>>> On Jun 8, 2015, at 1:27 PM, Sabra Ewing <sabra1023 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I am looking for a blind accountant who uses a screen reader,  not a
>>>>screen magnifier, or someone who has experience in this area.  I am
>>>>majoring in management information systems, but I am taking this
>>>>accounting class during the summer. I am having a lot of issues
>>>>understanding the layout of the spreadsheets I have to fill out. I was
>>>>able to set it up to identify the columns no matter what bro I'm on,
>>>>but the problem is that it won't work because we are doing multiple
>>>>tasks on the same spreadsheet, so depending on where I am, the column
>>>>titled could be different. For example, this one I recently completed
>>>>with help had the journal entries, the general ledger,  and the
>>>>unadjusted trial balance on the same sheet. Because of this, I am
>>>>having problems quickly accessing information from other areas of the
>>>>spreadsheet to use in the area I am working on, and the way these
>>>>sheets are laid out or not very intuitive to me and don't make sense
>>>>to me very well. I have been able to
> read other spreadsheets in the past without difficulty, and our course
>calendar is in a spreadsheet and I can read that fine, but the actual
>spreadsheets for my course I can't read for some reason. Another thing is
>that I don't know where the spreadsheet begins and ends, and they skip
>sells a lot to have blank space, but that also means I keep getting lost
>and not knowing where I am. To make it a bit more clear, we are given a
>spreadsheet that has rows and columns with accounts and drop down menus
>where you select them and all of that, and we have to populate the
>spreadsheet with numbers. As of now, I have just been using find commands
>to sort of navigate through the spreadsheet, but for that to work,
>someone has to tell me exactly what column or what account I am looking
>for, and yes, I might find it, but then I can't understand how the
>spreadsheet is laid out.
>>>> 
>>>> Sabra Ewing
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>> 
>> -- 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> 
>>   Derek Riemer
>> 
>> Department of Computer science Undergrad, proud CILA member, music
>>lover, and much more.
>> 
>> "Selfishness is the black hole of the human soul: Give no light of your
>>own, and eventually you are only darkness. Find where you shine & do."
>>Doug Lee, @doug_lee42 on twitter.
>> 
>> email me at derek.riemer at colorado.edu <mailto:derek.riemer at colorado.edu>
>> Phone: (303) 906-2194
>> 
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