I will agree that a JAWS user may not have been the best candidate,
but dd it occur to you that that is what they have to work with? If
there were other "exptert" VoiceOver users, they would have gone to
them.
Alsom, using VoiceOver with one hand? Ha! No way in heck I can do
that not with this iBook. But I suppose that's just it, it's a laptop.
Jane
On Jul 12, 2006, at 6:13 AM, Gabriel Vega wrote:
two things.
your expert jaws user is not a valid item in this conversation and
doesn't make a differents to me or probably anyone on this list and
two:
we can use voice over with one hand, its c alled the vo lock command.
but let me guess, the docs didn't mention this either???
Gabe
On Jul 12, 2006, at 3:46 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
