Deafblind Techie

Cooking with a visual impairment isn’t about mastering every available low-vision gadget or doing things “the correct way”. For me, it’s about finding strategies that build confidence through familiar methods. Knowing where tools are stored, how they feel in my hands, and trusting touch rather than relying solely on visual or audible cues. For important context, I still live at home with my family and share cooking responsibilities. In an average week, I typically prepare one or two evening meals, most lunches, and some baked goods. The adaptations I use with confidence aren’t about tackling everything alone. They’re about being able to prepare food safely and calmly, reducing stress and the risk of injury. Most importantly, they make cooking feel not only enjoyable, but doable. Over time, I’ve learned several dependable habits that make a meaningful difference — rather than forking out money for expensive, specialist low-vision aids that don’t always meet my needs. Below are the one...

An overview showing the standard High Contrast settings menu High Contrast Mode on Windows 10/11 wasn’t a feature I discovered for fun, but out of necessity. I first used it years ago to make the platform I sat my A-level exams on accessible, as there was no way to invert the brightness. At the time, it was a temporary solution — something I enabled when I needed it. More recently, though, I had to make a permanent switch. A screenshot of the Deafblind Techie Blog viewed using Windows High Contrast Mode The Day My Setup Broke One morning, I logged onto my PC and almost immediately had to pause. The text wasn’t white — it was grey. Flatter. Darker. Harder to identify, and simply exhausting to look at for more than 30 minutes at a time. Up until that point, I’d had no issues using dark mode with large text. But on that day, I knew. My sight had declined overnight. Why a Screen Reader Wasn’t the Answer I needed an alternative. Something that would allow me to continue working at a comput...