Re: Blind community 20 years later

[Travis Siegel]

Buddy.  I agree with you totally.  I wasn't saying all the things I  
pointed out work perfectly, only that they exist now, and didn't in  
1986.  Sure there were braille printers, but they were hidiously  
expensive, and audible crosswalks didn't exist.  Not saying that  
either one works as it *should* but they do work, and that's more  
than we could say 20 years ago.
Have there been backslides? Sure, and there always will be as long as  
there's people, but on the whole, advancements have outstripped the  
disadvantages, though before voice over, I'd have said that xp w/jaws  
or wineyes didn't give me the access artic did with dos.  This is the  
nature of the game though, and as pointed out in the first email  
(which was indeed a tongue in cheek reference to what has changed) I  
did point out that with dos about 90% of stuff was accessible, albeit  
not always easily.  Today we're lucky if we get 80% of stuff to work  
as it should.  This is partially a result of the graphical  
environment, and partially a result of bloatware.  But, since macOs  
is built on a unix base, I'm expecting it will go a long way to  
halting and partially reversing this trend.  I admit freely that  
accessiblity isn't what it should be on OSX, but when you think about  
it, percentage wise, it's pretty comparable with what's available on  
windows.  Sure, some areas are better than others, but this is the  
same way with windows.  Nobody is every going to get 100% agreement  
about what constitutes a quote working unquote os, or even indeed  
suites of programs, but I'd have to say that overall, OSX out of the  
box is a hell of a lot more usable than anything else that's come  
along in the last 10 years, and that is saying something these days.   
Nothing's perfect, and I never said it was, but if OSX is the first  
at the head of the trend, then we're going to see a lot more usable  
stuff coming out.  MS can't afford to ignore voice over (though  
they're certainly going to try) But as it gets better, and I have no  
doubt that it will, MS is going to have to make changes to their  
approach, or they're going to be left behind.
Of course then, we'll probably get a bunch of blind users complaining  
that they can't do in 10 years with windows that they could do with  
macs 10 years ago, but let's hope that doesn't happen, and hope for  
the best, Shall we?
Now, let's get on the bug reporting site of apple, and tell them what  
doesn't work, so that they have an official record of it.  That way  
they have a chance of fixing it.
I've never seen MS accept bug reports from blind users about narrator  
(or any other product for that matter) so Apple is definitely on the  
right track here.  Nothing is going to happen over night, but if we  
don't help drive the process by reporting what doesn't work, then do  
we have the right to complain when the next version comes out and a  
bug that was never reported directly to apple wasn't fixed?
I say if it bothers you, report it.
If it's broken, report it.
If vo crashes, report it, include the crash log, and apple can have a  
chance to fix it.
We've got the ability to make a difference, let's stand up and seize  
this opportunity.  It's something we've rarely had in the past, and I  
for one plan to take full advantage of it.  Regardless of how  
disgusted I get with XTools, or how frustrated I get with interface  
builder, I'm still a mac user, and I intend to make that as much of  
that as I can.