Hi,
Joe kindly referred me to this list, and I'd be very happy to discuss it
and cover off any issues you see with the article. I'm also interested
in learning more.
Apologies for the long email, but to respond to the points so far:
"Full keyboard access" mode is activated by cmd-f1, and then allows you
to use cmd-f2 & f3 to get to the menu bar and dock respectively. From
memory it allows other things as well, such as improving the behaviour
of tab & arrows keys. It's in the mouse/keyboard settings.
Scott wrote:
"The documentation available doesn't cover all the possible situation in
which you'd use this or that method of navigating or that you should
disable cursor tracking for this or that task etc."
That's true, we could really have done with a more task oriented guide.
We did a lot of reading before the evaluation, the main item being
Apple's guide:
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/manual.html
Although this helped more for the basics:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200505/voiceover_and_safari_screen_reading_on_the_mac/
The full guide isn't very well set up for learning as you go, although
the MP3s may be better.
Dane wrote:
"Someone from England may know the answer to this, wasn't the Royal
National Institute for the Blind going to be pushing VoiceOver to its
clientel?"
I don't believe so, but I can find out for sure. I would very much doubt
it until more applications are supported.
Travis wrote:
"Apparently in their documentation browsing, they missed the mouse
keystroke. They claim that in finder there's no way using the regular
voice over keys to open an application."
Actually, with the documentation in front of me, I still can't find it!
Sounds useful though, what do you mean by "vo-space"? (Is there a
voiceover key I missed?!)
We didn't claim you couldn't open an application, just that it was
difficult, at least from a 'switchers' point of view.
Travis also wrote:
"tried most other apps that ship with the os, since I clearly note on my
programs accessible with vo page that address book and calendar *do*
work, but with a bit of work."
We did the evaluation over two evening, totaling about 10 hours not
including reading before hand. This was with an expert JAWs user (blind)
and me, sighted but reasonably technical.
From memory, we tried textedit, email, safari, calendar, and
addressbook. There were severe issues with calendar and addressbook
(couldn't read labels, couldn't get to things).
In terms of a review, I'm happy that we put in more effort that most
people would when trying to actually use something day to day,
especially with two of us there trying!
However, if there are other ways of getting things to work, I'm very
interested.
Travis also mentioned:
"If the image doesn't have an alt tag, voice over *does* see the image,
and simply labels it image."
I'm pretty sure it didn't when we tried, is there a specific key for
this? I guess a quick test case would be the best way to find out, we
were using things like Amazon & Play, so there could have been
complications.
Travis said:
"they did try to be objective, they certainly did a better job than most
other reviews I've seen done by 3rd party reviewers."
Thanks, we did try :)
Actually we really wanted to be successful using VO, it would be great
to say "just buy a mac mini, it's better and cheaper", because I do
believe the OS is better. It was keyboard access I have a problem with.
Gabriel Vaga wrote:
"I am still not sure how you come to the conclusion that voice over is a
complex thing to deal with on the keyboard."
I'm impressed with the amount of systems you must use and know the
keyboard access details.
I mean that basic things (like 'down' through content) are one keypress
on most windows based screen readers. On Voiceover, most things are a
three key (two-handed) combo.
Granted, Windows based screen readers have many large combo combinations
as well, but the basics of navigation tend to be easier to learn for a
newbie, and easier to do for the expert. (My colleague Léonie often
drinks tea at the same time as navigating pages with JAWs ;)
Personally, I think Apple should make more of the 'full keyboard access'
option and make it more different. For example, anything that was
control-option-x, becomes simply x. I haven't really thought that
through specifically, but I'm sure things could be made easier.
Kind regards,
-Alastair
