Here's why you shouldn't use too many emojis when texting a visually impaired person

Emojis have become an integral part of our daily communication, and our texts with loved ones are flooded with them. Many people believe emojis fill a void that words could never capture and express themselves better with emojis. However, a person on Tumblr is urging people to not liberally use emojis when communicating with a visually impaired person. The Tumblr user, who's blind, said it would be better to use one emoji to capture your emotion, and said it would be best to use it at the end of the message, as opposed to using them in the middle.

Visually impaired people have text messages read out to them, including the description of the emojis they receive. Some are unaware emojis are read out to those who are visually impaired. So, if they were to receive a message with 10 heart emojis, the description "heart emoji" will be read out to them 10 times, which can be very annoying. "Small tip to help some of your blind friends: do not put 10,000 emojis in the middle of a text or a post if you continue to put text after the emojis because I will tell you that I will straight give up if I have to listen to “face with tears of joy, face with tears of joy, face with tears of joy,” 23 times just to hear the rest of your text or post, wrote Tumblr user 'actuallyblind.' While those who have vision may not be too bothered by someone sending them many emojis, it can be quite irritating for those who are visually impaired.

The post has since received more than 127,000 notes. Veronica Lewis, who pens a blog about living with vision impairment, explained the basics when it comes to messaging those who are visually impaired. "First things first, correct grammar and punctuation are very important when you text to a blind person," said Veronica, reported Bored Panda. "If you ever witnessed a situation when a person shouted to a deaf person and it looked pretty awkward as it didn’t help them to be heard, don’t use capital letters when you write to a blind person because it won’t change anything, but rather look as if you are yelling at them."

Many discussed the "do's" and "don'ts" while texting black people. Many said it was important to abbreviate or use fancy lingo that many screen reading technology will have trouble pronouncing correctly or take longer to read. It's also best to avoid using too many punctuation marks. Nobody wants to hear "question mark" "question mark" "exclamation mark" repeatedly. When sending links to people with impaired vision, always mention where the link will take them to, and ideally user link shorteners as the screen readers may read the whole link which can be quite long.

Veronica also insisted that contrary to many people's beliefs, those with impaired vision have no issue with using words such as see, view, etc. "There is nothing wrong with using the word see around people with vision impairments. A common misconception from sighted people is that using a term like see, watch, view, or look is offensive to someone with blindness or low vision. The truth is, people with vision impairment use those terms themselves," wrote Veronica on her blog. "A totally blind person will say they “watched” a video, I “view” materials online, and those of us with low vision or blindness frequently need help “looking” for things. These words are not exclusive to the sighted community, and frequently do not refer to the literal appearance of something, or the act of seeing them," she added.

She also added that it was not offensive to call someone blind and that it is a diagnostic term to measure the level of impairment. "The term visually impaired is not offensive either. Some people use low vision and blindness interchangeably, as many “blind” people still have at least some degree of sight," she added.