Aaron Preece
If you are familiar with AFB, or have been an AccessWorld reader for many years, you probably recognize the name of Darren Burton. Darren was a key member of AFB Tech and a prolific AccessWorld author for many years before his move to Yahoo in 2014. As part of our inaugural issue of the relaunched AccessWorld, we sat down with Darren to get his insights on recovery after vision loss, technology, and solutions to the employment barriers facing the blind and low vision community today.
Background
Before losing his vision, Darren attended West Virginia University before moving on to join a brokerage firm. Several years later, while skiing, he noticed that his vision was decreasing and upon inspection, it was discovered that there was a tumor on his pituitary which was affecting his vision. During surgery in 1993, his optic nerve was damaged, leaving him with light perception only. After a few years of regaining his living skills, he returned to college to finish his degree where he also taught himself how to use the assistive technology available at the time. After finishing his degree, Darren attended law school at WVU where he found his way into the access industry. While in law school, a judge who was blind was appointed, and Darren became the consultant who aided in setting up an accessible court room for him. After this position, Darren left law school and entered the blindness technology industry full time. His next position was at the West Virginia Assistive Technology System, followed by his position with AFB when the AFB Tech office opened in Huntington in 2002. He rose to the position of director of the Huntington office before becoming an access expert for Yahoo in 2014. In semi-retirement, he now instructs the interns and apprentices as part of the AFB Talent Lab.
Interview with Darren
Question: When you started losing your vision, did you have an idea where you could learn the skills you would need to function as someone who is blind in daily life, e.g., assistive technology, Orientation and Mobility, living skills, etc., or did you have to learn after vision loss?
Burton: I was clueless; I really knew nothing about anything technology wise. Right out of the hospital, my brother worked for the state department of vocational rehabilitation so he connected me there, and I went there for a few months learning braille and cane travel, but they had no technology training whatsoever. The rest of it, the technology, I had to learn 100% on my own, save up the money to buy it on my own. But yes, 100% I was very clueless and unprepared; I knew a few people who helped me out here and there, but it was really an unstructured discovery so to speak.
Question: How did you regain your confidence after losing your vision; were there specific skills that helped with this?
Burton: One good skill I learned from Voc Rehab was cane travel. Getting out the door, that's number one. Luck and good fortune doesn't come sitting at home. Also what helped me get my sea legs and get back on my feet and confident when doing things-not only getting out of the house and seeing friends but doing things like skiing. Skiing was huge. Getting back on the slopes and successfully getting down the mountain, having a lot of fun at it and skiing fast, that was awesome. Playing cards with my buddies. My buddies helped me get down the mountain, but playing poker, it was an even playing field competing. That, in many ways, was even better, especially if I won a few bucks.
Question: Did you have certain views of what it would be like to be blind before losing your vision? Did any of these views change after vision loss?
Burton: I did have stereotypes. I had read the Helen Keller book and knew some blind people around town; one was a very skilled wood carver who did a really good job. So I had the Superman idea but also the idea of the homeless blind person begging on the street. I'd seen the Stevie Wonder commercial using one of the early OCR machines, so I thought, ‘Hey, we take good care of blind people; they've got everything, they've got dogs, we're good.’ But after I lost my sight I was really surprised at things like the lack of technical knowledge in the training I got and the incredibly bad state of the technology available for blind people at the time. In 1993, there wasn't a whole lot. There were some talking watches, but there were no accessible phones, JAWS was extremely limited, there was no internet access at all, and the only things accessible were email, spreadsheets, and word processing. Many of my impressions were not true.
Question: Since you have experienced both employment from the perspective of someone sighted as well as someone who is blind, what have been the major differences? What has been the largest obstacle working as someone who is blind or low vision?
Burton: When I was sighted, I was cavalier about everything in life. When I lost my sight, I became much more focused. Right now, the biggest barrier is the inaccessibility of 3rd party software. Even when they're accessible like Google Docs, from a usability standpoint, it can still be frustrating to use. If we have a 40 hour work week, we're probably working 50 to keep up with our colleagues. As an example, at Yahoo, I had to do travel and expenses, and any of our internal stuff like our benefits management portal, our time management portal-none of that was accessible. To get it done, we didn't have any admin support that we could sit down with for an hour and do it either. I had to twist the arms of friends or say, if you'll do this for me, I'll do this for you.
Question: What has been the largest positive development in technology that has occurred since 2010?
Burton: The new full page braille displays have the potential I think to be a game changer. Remember all the talk about wearables; I don't think that's ever hit. Right now, the AI we're seeing is going to be a huge game changer. We already have some of our interns and apprentices using one of them to choose the proper WCAG success criteria; that's huge. I think it’s scary, I think it’s exciting.
Question: You are considered to be a natural leader and very charismatic; are these traits something you have deliberately cultivated or did you find that they are something inherent to who you are?
Burton: Being outgoing has helped my career. Being the mountain climber, football player, having the ‘lets go for it even if I run into a wall, I'll keep going’ mentality has helped. I've certainly worked on developing that outgoing spirit, for sure. I worked on presentations, getting up in front of people and speaking; I've improved on that over the years. Soft skills, I think, are as important or possibly even more important than the tech skills. Just building that confidence. When I lost my sight, I was afraid to go out; I had this feeling that I would let everybody down. I didn't really leave the house for months, and when I finally went to a party, I was scared to death but ended up having a lot of fun. Those kinds of things really helped for sure, both personally and professionally. As my confidence grew, my abilities and my career grew; that gave me more confidence and it feeds upon itself.
Question: If you could go back in time and change or tell yourself something at any point in your employment journey, when and what would that be, if anything?
Burton: I think I would have gone to Silicon Valley earlier, but I was afraid to go, even back when I was sighted. I would have been bolder. I was just talking with our interns and apprentices who are afraid they will find a job they are interested in but that they are not qualified for. I have never been qualified for any job I have ever gotten. There has always been something in the job description that I am not qualified for, but that’s the same with everyone. I would want to be more aggressive to encourage change, I think. I would have also found ways to develop ideas I wanted to build. I had access to the right people at different times but didn’t take advantage of it.
Question: What do you think we could do to positively impact employment for people who are blind or low vision?
Burton: One of the things I think we can have an effect on more easily are those accessibility barriers I talked about. The 3rd party software, the inaccessible websites, the apps– we're never going to go out of the accessibility business. Let’s say we solve that. Then they're are two more barriers. We have to change the attitudes of the employers to lower the unemployment rate for people who a blind; although it is certainly improving, it’s not well enough. We also need to set high expectations for the younger generations of blind students about to enter the workforce so they have confidence for the workplace.
Question: What is something you wish was common sense, something you wish you could tell to people (be it to employers, coworkers, companies, able-bodied people, other people with disabilities, etc) regarding employment and inclusion/accessibility?
Burton: Really, the trust in our abilities. We function in our lives, why couldn't we function at work? I had someone the other day ask, "I saw that you were blind, but how are you using that phone?" And they had no concept of speech output and the power of assistive technology, which opens so many doors for us. That needs to change.
