0 → The firewall at the door
A day trip to Bogotá to find real blind users for Koby, the comics-for-the-blind accessibility tool, ends in nothing but bus fare spent. Two institutes for the blind, and at neither could they get past the lobby: commercial buildings with a guard who is not a receptionist but a filter, no appointment, no entry. Juan's framing is precise: a guard should be a firewall that gives you instructions or safety, but here it was a firewall that just blocks packets, they never even saw what was inside. He names the sharper suspicion too, a little classism, the sense that arriving on foot instead of in a car gets you waved off. The lesson banked from 80,000 pesos of wasted transport: for feedback, the internet is faster and more open than a door you can't get through, and the follow-up he still owes is a push, an email, a nudge, not another trip.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 10:53 (fuimos a Bogotá ilusionados a buscar usuarios ciegos para probar Koby, la herramienta de accesibilidad para cómics)
- ↳ video diary @ 18:50 (edificios comerciales con un guarda que es un filtro; no pasas de la portería sin cita)
- ↳ video diary @ 19:43 (un guarda debería ser un firewall que da instrucciones o seguridad; acá fue un firewall que solo bloquea)
- ↳ video diary @ 25:08 (sentí un poquito de clasismo; si llegas caminando no te paran bolas, si llegas en carro pasas)
- ↳ video diary @ 27:29 (en internet es más fácil conseguir feedback; el correo a la señora todavía falta el push)
- ↳ Entry 269-2: The AI has no soul (Koby, ya estrechado al nicho ciego, es lo que salieron a validar en la calle)
They went to Bogotá full of hope. The plan was concrete and good: Koby, the reading tool now narrowed to accessibility, to giving a blind person the independence of reading a comic on their own, needed real blind users to test it, and where do you find them but at an institute for the blind ▸ 10:53. So they took the bus, then the Transmilenio across the city, to two of them: the Instituto Nacional para Ciegos and the Fundación Saldarriaga Concha.
At neither did they get past the lobby. Both turned out to be offices inside commercial buildings, the kind that hold law firms and dental practices, each with a guard at the door ▸ 18:50. Do you have an appointment? Who are you here to see? No appointment, no entry, and there is nothing two developers can say to a guard, “hi, we build software for blind people” means nothing to him. At the first, a woman opened the door just far enough to put her face through the gap, said come back another day, and closed it. At the second there was a metal detector and a “do you have a cita,” and then no.
un guardia debería ser firewall que ayuda, no que bloquea →
Juan reaches for the exact metaphor, because he can’t help it. A guard should be a firewall in the good sense: someone who stops you only to give you instructions, or to give you safety, to route you to the right person inside ▸ 19:43. Here it was a firewall in the other sense, one that simply drops the packet. They never entered the building, never learned what was inside, never met anyone. And there’s a colder read underneath, which he offers honestly: a little classism ▸ 25:08. Arrive on foot, however well dressed, and no one pays you much attention; arrive in a car and it’s “welcome, doctor, go right in.” Had they driven, he suspects, they’d have cleared the guard.
The receipt: around 80,000 pesos on transport and lunch, and nothing to show for it. But the reflection banks the loss into a lesson. For feedback, the internet is faster and more open than a door you can’t get through, and he says so plainly, he could have used the idea better online. The one move still owed is not another trip but a push: he wrote an email to a woman at one institute and she hasn’t answered, and Julia’s verdict is the correct one, you have to push, push, push, that’s how it’s done. The door was closed. The inbox is still open…