Adostrophe Labs · Early stage
An accessibility project
Development tooling for programmers who write code with a screen reader. It doesn't have a name yet, and it won't get one until there's something worth naming.
Back to LabsWhere this started
A programming lecture, and blind students in the room learning Python — a language where indentation isn't formatting, it's syntax. Meaning is carried by whitespace, and whitespace is the part that arrives least reliably: some screen readers and editors announce it well, others barely, and the settings that fix it are rarely on by default. The structure of the code, the thing you most need to hold in your head, is the thing you have to work hardest to hear.
That problem has answers. Some of them already exist in tools built by blind developers over decades. What's missing is less glamorous than a new interface: it's the ordinary, well-made tooling that sighted programmers get by default and rarely notice.
Why this page is short
- Nothing is built. There is no prototype, no beta, and no waiting list.
- The person writing this is sighted. This can't be designed from the outside, and a good idea arrived at alone is still a guess.
- So the first work isn't code. It's talking to people who program with a screen reader every day, and being told which assumptions here are wrong.
- This page will stay this short until that's happened.
An invitation
If you write code with a screen reader, or teach people who do, this page is for you. What breaks, what's already solved and doesn't need reinventing, and what you'd want that nobody has built — all of it is useful, including "you've got this wrong."
A short email is plenty. If it turns into something longer, I'd rather pay for your time than ask for it free; say what's fair.
Email info@adostrophe.com — mail about this gets answered personally.
Related reading from the journal: India's accessibility gap. This project was previously listed here as “Ecostrophe” — a name that pointed at ecology and described nothing about the work. It's been retired.
Start a project
Tell us about the space, and we'll tell you what it'll take.
Most replies come within a day. Most enquiries start with a short email about the space.
Email info@adostrophe.com