Forget your eyes and get dating

This might sound like a post about blind dating, but read into it and you won't be disappointed. In the year 2015, in the middle of October I was feeling rather dull at one afternoon. I thought I'd give a try to online-dating, which I realised wouldn't be much anything to difficult nowadays. There are countless websites and even apps for smartphones and I decided to try them out. Originally I chose three apps to test: OKCupid, Tinder and CMB or coffee meets bagle. I'll write about each one of them later, but let's set some things right first. I'm completely blind, which doesn't bother me usually as much as it does bother others. In the recent years, Eastern Europe has become more accepting though. I've been living in two post-soviet countries: Estonia and Hungary and the speed they're opening up to wider societal inclusion is remarkable. Although I say that with caution, maybe my ever present smile just keeps bad experiences away. I can argue however, that the leap from a completely unaccepting and offencive society to a more inclusive one has been astounding, although it has its own setbacks and often laypeople aren't capable of coping with the reinvented world around them. This is also what made this experiment of using a dating app so interesting, going at it with a screen reader and on an android based system is, well, not the easiest task. But I hope you find it somewhat interesting to read and to contemplate. Especially interesting was to go to this experiment as a polyamorous person (I often mistype it to be polyarmorous). Polyamory itself is a bastard-word, being a mix of greek and latin and invented in English, I'd like to have it changed for something else, but alas, It's a bit too late. I wouldn't discuss my personal experiences with using these applications in detail. I do have the tendancy to disclose personal information a bit too easily and I'd like to avoid it at all costs. OKC, Tinder and CMB are going to be the main discussionpoints of that piece here, but I'll pay small visits to other apps as well, such as olderwomendating or grindr.

I OKC

OKC was the first app and the portal I got myself into. It gave me so much in return, of course I devoted much time to it, but this is how online dating unfortunately works, you give your time to the computer, not to the actual people. Although yes, I wouldn't give the chatting sessions I had and am still having with nice people for anything. OKC is a large portal and a rather unusable app though. But lets start by rating the plusses and minuses Android app: Positives: interface is quite self-explanatory even for a screen reader user, * most of the information can be read and acted upon, Profiles don't differ between the website and between the app, * advertisements are consistently in one place and can be ignored, Negatives: Questions can't be answered in the app Changing slider parameters involves placing a finger on the parameter and then trying to move it with another one, which makes it really difficult to change different settings. * Buttons are not labeled, making it difficult to actually like or message someone, or to even see whether I've already liked someone or not. * Although the profiles are readable, comparisons between you and the potential match are yet not so simple to understand. Website: positives: * Almost everything is easily editable Negatives: * Advertisements are all over the place and annoy screen reader users, but I suspect that not only us. I wouldn't be describing OKC much more here, for anything else I'd say would be about the experience and not the actual accessibility.

II Tinder

Tinder was a revolution when it came out first, quickly gathering a huge following because of its "super easy" to use interface, which basically consists of seing a photo and swiping on it. Android app: Positives: * Everything is really simple * Every text-based information that is given by the user is accessible. Negatives: * Looking at a photo won't give us a thing, so the only way to get to know something about the user is to click on their photo and hope that they provide something to hang onto, which they usually don't, except their age and studies or workplace. * Nothing at all is labeled, so using the app is literally intuitive, or rather, required puttering around and hoping that you don't accidentally dislike "the match of your life" or waste the only superlike you have per day, if you're not a tinder-plus user. Even if setting up the profile is not so much of a problem, editing it is a hassle, that usually makes me too impatient to continue. And changing the options afterwards is quite difficult. Web interface not available. The over all thing is too much visage-based, but don't give up, after giving a propper account of oneself, everything is possible, even in tinder, even for a V.I person.

III CMB =Coffee meets bagel

Warning: CMB is extremely unpopular in central-eastern Europe, but that's a geographical issue and doesn't apply to the regions where it's not so much of a problem. The name is super cute though. Android app: Positives: * Most of the necessary buttons are labeled and can be interacted with. * The screen doesn't contain much stuff, neither does it have advertisements, although I sometimes got lost on the screen, I found the overall experience a rather pleasant one. * Tabs were consistantly in one place, so finding the buttons and things wasn't a big problem. Negatives: * Due to its or my extreme unpopularity I didn't managed to test what happens if you actually connect with someone. * Using discover mode, the bagles are a bit disordered and navigating around them isn't that easy. * Again quite large influence is based on photos. To the point that actually to get approved, I needed to ask for sighted assistance to help me to choose a profile picture where my face and trunk are visible. I was clad, just to avoid all misunderstandings, they just want to assure that pictures uploaded are more than possibly actual pictures, but its still kind of embarrasing to go to ask e.g. your little sister to help you to sign up for a dating website. That gossip afterwards... Declaration, the little sister mentioned here is fictional. * Editing sliders is a mess and it's almost impossible, I managed to mess up the age range at one point for quite a many days and it required me later to push with one finger on the slider and move my other finger, which was a pest. * CMB actually would like you to give a rather long describtion of yourself and doing that for example on a nexus 5 as I was doing is not the simplest thing to achieve... No physical keyboard and I didn't have a physical attachable either. Website not available.. again.

IV Of the other apps

I also gave a little flick to olderwomendating. This thing has a website too, I discovered later and most interestingly. I managed to get into a rather intelligent conversation there. Cougars aren't the hungriest animals out there, or maybe that one just tries to seduce me with her sapio. I really wanted to try out grindr, just for the sake of including an app ment to connect lgbt people. I'm not one of the movement, maybe a bit queer in the sense that I refuse to conform to the gender norms we're placed into, but unfortunately grindr required filling in a captcha to sign up and that wasn't an option on the phone, no audiocaptcha was provided. I might contact them to get it fixed though and then this post might get an update. ;)

V Links and references

And now, as you might have gotten to the end of this writing, there're some links for you in the end that actually compare the different dating portals and apps just not from the position of a VI, but taking into account the features, pros and cons. So here, have some articles I used to make up the list and that I read during this small research: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-dating-apps/ http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/639-best-dating-apps.html http://www.popsugar.com/love/Best-Online-Dating-Apps-30583474#photo-30583474 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-and-worst-dating-apps-in-2016-ranked-by-reviews-2016-2