Hi Greg,
That is a good responce. I do understand more apple's philosophy. My
observations were more from the standpoint of a totally blind user
who is used to such abilities as searching the screen for specific
text and moving the mouse to it automaticly. As you said, VO is
designed for all sorts of disabilities and I am glad apple are going
down this road, but it is advertised as a screen reader and it it
sort of fails at this to an extent.
Best
-James-
On 2 Sep 2007, at 00:15, Greg Kearney wrote:
I suspect what he may be referring to is the lack of off screen
controls with in the VoiceOver environment. This is a fundamental
difference between the Mac and Windows screen readers and one I
would not expect ever to change. It is also the cause of
considerable frustration to Jaws and WindowsEye users in making the
transition from Windows to Macintosh.
The off screen controls is what makes getting help from sighted co-
workers nearly impossible for blind Windows users. They are always
trying to figure out what the blind user is doing because the
screen does not reflect that which is being done. In the Mac
environment the screen is always reflective of the action of the
user be he using VoiceOver or the mouse.
While the lack of off screen controls will bother Jaws and
WindowEyes users. Blind users who start out on the Macintosh should
not find this a particular problem.
Another aspect of the VoiceOver approach to screen reading is that
unlike Jaws and WindowEye VoiceOver does not override the OS. In
Windows screen readers it is common to has a Jaws command for
everything, Jaws scripts to control a particular program. In
passing it is possible to write scripts for Mac programs using the
built in scripting language AppleScript.
I was once asked by a person I was training what the VoiceOver
command to close a window was. Of course there is no VoiceOver
command to close a window, nor should there be because the OS
already has several ways to do just that. With Windows the blind
user learns a totally unique way to interact with the computer.
With Macintosh the screen reader provides a alternate way to
interact with the OS controls it does not attempt to overtake the
functions of the OS.
There are several reasons for this, as a system service VoiceOver
attempt to retain as much of the OS operations as possible. This is
part of the Mac's overall design approach and has been from the
beginning of the OS. The other reason is that unlike Jaws and
WindowEye VoiceOVer is designed to fill the need of more than just
the blind. Dyslexics, such as myself and those will mobility
impairments that prevent them from using the mouse are also target
users.
VoiceOver is far from perfect and many improvements in both
navigation and braille support are coming. For a review of these
improvement I would refer you to http://www.apple.com/macosx/
leopard/features/accessibility.html
Greg Kearney
On Sep 1, 2007, at 4:53 PM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
Nothing wrong with raising issues but could you possibly be a bit
more specific?
James Jolley wrote:
> There is little intelligence in the screen reader
> to detect specific details, the fact that we have to interact with
> everything slows us down for a start.
What do you mean by "intelligence ... to detect specific details?"
Can you give an example?
> Any respectible screen reader has
> the ability to work with the current controll with ease and not
expect
> the user to jump through hoops to interact with it.
What unnecessary hoops does VO make you jump through?
As I said, if the mac is so perfect for blind people, what are we
running windows with fusion or whatever on it for?
This seems like a strawman argument, since people don't seem to be
claiming the Mac is perfect for blind people in general, only that
it is better for their own purposes.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
