Faces Behind the Screen: Raising Awareness for Web Accessibility

About the project:

Inspired by the popular photo-interview project Humans of New York, Faces Behind the Screen was launched in 2017 with the goal of spreading awareness about web accessibility.

Through photos and interviews, we’ve had the privilege of sharing many unique stories that give everyday people a face, a voice, and an opportunity to share their story and perspective.

Our aim is to connect the world with these stories by offering a new perspective, and hopefully, work toward shattering stigmas and preconceived notions to remind everyone that the world wide web should be be accessible for everyone – including people with disabilities.

Amanda “Mandy” Harvey is a singer, songwriter, and inspirational speaker who gained widespread recognition on America’s Got Talent, where her original song earned the Golden Buzzer and led her to a fourth-place finish.

READ MANDY’S STORY →

Stephen Norris, known as Blind Fury, is a blind hip-hop artist and battle rapper from Camden, South Carolina, who gained fame from his 2003 appearance on MTV’s Rocafella MC and has since gone on to release several studio albums.

READ STEPHEN’S STORY →

Christine Ha was the first legally blind MasterChef contestant who won season three with her Vietnamese-inspired dishes. She continues to impact the culinary world with her restaurant, The Blind Goat, in Houston.

READ CHRISTINE’S STORY →

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Mandy Harvey plays the ukulele while singing into a microphone

Read Mandy's Story

“I remember sitting in this class, everybody else in the room was way older than me–adults–and they handed me the sheet music they were working on. It was the first time [I was] able to sit in a room, everybody was looking at the same thing, and I could follow along because all the words were there in black and white.”

Read John's Story

“In April of 2001, I went to a low vision specialist for the first time. My vision was 20 over 400, which is twice the legal limit for blindness. A couple of months later, it was 20 over 800. Within a month of that, they couldn’t measure my vision anymore.”

Read Cat Brewer's Story

“If you don’t have someone in your life that is deaf or hard of hearing, who’s never had to struggle to get access to these things, you’re not aware of it. I’m not a comedian or an artist or a musician, and I wasn’t aware of this until I saw and talked to people who are facing these challenges.”

Rebecca and her curly, golden dog play at the park in autumn.

Read Rebecca Alexander's Story

“We take so many things for granted that it’s this idea of pitying people who are losing their vision and hearing, or pitying people who use a wheelchair, or pitying people who may not have…mobility and access, that I think engenders this feeling of being better than, or being more privileged.”

Selena and casavina dressed up and smiling

Read Deafie In Drag's Story

“(Selena Minogue): I was Deaf since birth, and I have an older brother who taught me ASL from the beginning.

Casavina: I was supposed to be born hearing, but birth complications happened so I became deaf at an early age. I’m the only Deaf person in my family, and I grew up oral until I was taught sign language at age eight.

(Both): We both met at Gallaudet University (the only Deaf university in the world) and we were introduced by our mutual friends. We eventually started dating a few months later. Now we’ve been together for seven years.

Selena Minogue is an amazing storyteller with facial expressions, and Casavina loves filming and editing videos. Together, we created one-man skit shows. When we both saw RuPaul’s Drag Race season 2, it inspired us to get into drag for skit videos. We enjoyed acting as different characters and being drag queens for stage shows.

Read Nico's Story

My biggest role model is my mom. She’s a single mom who raised three boys. Just seeing what she went through, and how she made it – that’s a role model I wish I could become. Growing up in a deaf family was normal. There were no communication barriers. I assumed everyone had the same experience until I started making friends who were deaf and had hearing parents. They couldn’t communicate with their parents because their parents didn’t know sign language. It’s sad because they don’t really form relationships with their family members. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how fortunate I was to be in a deaf family. My friends never had conversations at the dinner table with their parents. I couldn’t imagine not having a conversation at the dinner table because it was a huge part of my upbringing. I’m so lucky to have a deaf family and to have my experience be all-inclusive because everybody was apart of that.

Sadly I get discriminated against as a deaf person. I think as a deaf DJ, oftentimes people don’t trust my abilities because I can’t hear. Sometimes I won’t get hired [for a gig]. There’s nothing I can do about being deaf, but there is something I can do about being a DJ. I think it’s about exposing people to the deaf culture and what it’s all about. Hearing is not a barrier for us. When people say we can’t do things, we constantly have to prove to people that we can do anything we put our mind to.

I have a lot of proud moments. One summer I went to Reims, France for a deaf festival. The festival was all about deaf talent and performances. They always hired deaf businesses, with the exception of the DJ, until they found out about me. I DJ’d for 7,000 people. I never experienced that before. It was like a concert! People were moving their hands along with the motions I was showing them. People were following me like I was someone – and I was like wait a minute, it’s me they’re following! It was really cool.

If I could give one piece of advice to deaf or hard of hearing people, I would tell them to do what you love. You can do it. Don’t wait. The most important part is doing your homework before you make your dream comes true. It takes baby steps to get somewhere, but if you do it right, you’ll get to the top.

Read Bryan and Brad's Story

“BRAD: When you’re young with Stargardt’s disease, you still have a lot of functional vision. You don’t really realize there are things you’re not seeing.

One of the first moments of struggling was in first grade. My mum had told me that if I couldn’t see something on the board, I could walk up to the board to see it.

I took that as anything else she sort of told me to do, but then I remember in class having to get up out of my desk to go a foot from the chalkboard to read what the teacher had written on it, and not seeing anybody else in the class getting up to do that. It definitely hit me then – something was different.

That’s definitely the first time that I remember feeling different

BRYAN: My personal struggle is I very rarely recognize somebody after meeting them for the first time. Because of my vision, you could be anybody from my mum to the Pope, and I wouldn’t quite know.

Thankfully, a lot of people are very understanding. It’s one of those things that if you know somebody’s low vision, it is beyond helpful to just say, “Hey, it’s John.” If you give me the name, I can actually place where we had a conversation. But recognizing the face is always a little bit tough.”

a man smiling in a chair mid conversation wearing a hat with a 3 on it, a bandanna around his neck, a sleeveless shirt with a lion on it, and basketball shorts

Read Matt's Story

“I’m not so much trying to bring in more interpreters, but trying to improve the quality of music. The whole idea started from me watching interpreters. I was like, OK, I’m deaf, and I’m learning sign language… why can’t I understand the interpreter?”

Read CJ's Story

“I feel like I’m breaking barriers. And I really want to just get involved and work and open up those doors, so that more and more Deaf, hard of hearing, disabled actors of any sort will be able to get their foot in the door and have work in TV, film, and stage. If that’s their passion, that’s their dream, they have the right to make their dreams come true. And I want people to be sensitive enough to include those people at the table.”

Read Rikki's Story

What is the best thing about being deaf?

“I hear screaming/crying babies less. Unfortunately, sometimes, I can still hear them depending on how close they are, but for the most part, the sound is less for me than it would be a hearing person. Sorry, babies. I understand why you cry, but it hurts.”

Read Stephen's Story

“I think how I really got started with rap was just listening to it, being around it, and realizing it was something that I probably shouldn’t have been a part of as a three-year-old boy from South Carolina. It was a lot of yelling, a lot of cursing, and a lot of 808 beats, and things I’d never heard before, so I thought that it sounded really cool. I liked it.

Back then, you didn’t want your three-year-old, four-year-old kid listening to 2 Live Crew and Snoop Dogg. Once I saw resistance from adults – people who weren’t necessarily against rap or hip-hop, I was like, ‘I can get in trouble for this and I like it.'”

Read Aaron's Story

“It’s a constant battle about having to prove ourselves. I have had several interviews that were absolutely not deaf-friendly at all. One interview had about seven people sitting at one table talking to me at the same time. So it’s a constant game of, do I tell them I’m deaf from the get-go? Or do I let them find out at the interview? And then I risk not having an interpreter if I do that.”

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FACES BEHIND THE SCREEN

About the project:

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