A couple of things. Before I switched, I thought that holding down
control and option all the time would be cumbersome, but its really
not at least for me. I have gotten used to it, and have even found
myself trying to do it when using my windows machine. There's also
the option of locking the vo keys for people who don't want to press
them all the time.
Also, I'm still confused about full keyboard mode. You can get to
the menu bar by pressing control f2 with the regular mode turned on.
You an also get to the menu bar by pressing control option m. and
the dock by pressing control option d. I may be wrong about this,
but I think you can also open files from the finder by pressing
control option space as well as command o. But really the command o
thing is just a product of a different operating system. There will
be things to re-learn when switching.
Regarding the images on webpages thing. There is an option in vo
options that says something like only navigate images with alt text,
it will skip all other images. I think that's turned off by default,
so unless you turned it on, that shouldn't have been a problem. Also
your mileage may very, bt I've found the group options in webpage box
under navigation under vo options to be helpful. That sentence was
kind of confusing, sorry.
I hope this helps.
Holly
On Jul 12, 2006, at 5:46 AM, Alastair Campbell wrote:
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
