How many times has this happened to you? You are at a grocery store and you need a pair of eyeballs to read something for you. There’s a woman with long brown hair facing away from you at the end of the aisle. As you start walking toward her you say very distinctly “Excuse me… Miss?” The person you thought was a woman turns around and says very intimidatingly “SIR!” You shrink away in horror as the long-haired man with a big bushy biker beard starts frothing at the mouth.
I have had things like this happen to me on numerous occasions. At the time it happens I am humiliated beyond belief. Curling up in the fetal position sometimes sounds like just the thing to do. But looking back I gotta laugh at all those cases of (Miss Identification) BA-DUM-BUMP!
One of my favorite low-vision flubs of all time is the day I walked up to a mannequin and touched it. Suddenly this plastic statue comes to life and slaps me across the face and screams. I had a hard time explaining that one to her husband! No, he didn’t have long hair! 🙂
There’s a great episode of Sterotek’s High Contrast Podcast where we talk about confusing people’s genders among a ton of other amusing content. Check it out! Listen to High Contrast 13: Too Cool For School.
Tell us your war stories in the comments section below or post one in our Forums!
Perfect timing.
We have been asked to circulate the availability of the below survey by one of our members…
Dave
The University of Nevada in Reno is conducting a study to better understand what limitations people with visual impairments encounter when engaging in social interaction.
We are currently developing a tool that can recognize people and provide information about these people. The goal of the survey is to identify what kind of information would be useful to provide. This survey takes between 10 and 25 minutes to complete and your collaboration is much appreciated.
If you are interested in helping us provide feedback, please click on the following link, which should be accessible using most screen readers.
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1462383/Social-Iq2nteractions-Study-for-Users-with-Visual-Impairments
thanks for your participation.
—
Dr. Eelke Folmer
Associate Professor, Human-Computer Interaction
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Nevada, Reno
http://eelke.com
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I had long hair back in the early 1990’s but anyway, I always try to be gender neutral around people I don’t know because I have embarrassed myself on numerous occasions.