No Sight Required: The Blind User's Guide to AI

For the first time, the computer can meet us halfway. Hand it a photo and ask what's in it. Hand it an inaccessible PDF and get clean text back. Point your camera down a grocery aisle and ask what's on the shelf. No hunting for the unlabeled button. You talk, it answers.
No Sight Required is the practical, no-gatekeeping guide to making that real, written by Tony Gebhard: a totally blind musician, assistive technology professional, and advocate who uses these tools every single day, without sight. This is not a textbook written by a sighted consultant who spent twenty minutes with a screen reader. It is one of us, walking you through the most powerful technology to reach our community since the screen reader itself.
From your very first keystroke to building your own accessible software, every page is screen-reader-first. Major topics are headings, steps are numbered, and keystrokes are spelled out in plain words, never just click the icon in the corner.
What you'll learn:
• Navigate ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini confidently across Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android
• Exact, working commands for NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, and TalkBack, on the desktop and in your pocket
• Live video: point your camera and get real-time descriptions while reading mail, identifying products, or out in the world
• A prompt library you can steal from on day one, with placeholders that make every prompt your own
• Describe photos, rescue inaccessible PDFs, decode screenshots, and query the visual world on demand
• Use AI as a patient coding partner. Yes, you can ship real software, and the author shows you how
• Win at work: meetings, charts, inaccessible attachments, accommodation requests, and the job hunt
• Troubleshoot the moments when your screen reader and the AI stop playing nice
• Stay safe and current: hallucinations, privacy, scams, and the next wave of AI built into your assistive tech
Plus quick-reference command cards, a plain-English glossary, and a directory of trusted, hand-picked resources to keep you learning long after the last page.
This is a book about partnering with AI, so it is honest about being one: helped by AI, finished by a human, and checked by more humans, with every keystroke and resource verified against official documentation and current community sources.
Perfect for newly blind and lifelong screen reader users alike, and for the family members, teachers, and rehabilitation professionals who support them.
You are not too old. You are not too late. You are not behind. Whether you picked this up excited or scared, brand new or a seasoned power user, there is a place for you here, and a guide who refuses to leave you stranded.
You belong here. Let's get your hands on the keyboard.