Hi Randy,
On Oct 25, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Randy Stegall wrote:
Hi Esther,
That is a bummer and a show stopper for me. Btw, is the fn key
sticky?
As Louie suggested, it's possible to get a numeric keypad attachment
for a laptop. It's just not something that I've tried. I hadn't
played much with the sticky keys, but a quick check shows that the
fn key is sticky.
We need to lobby audible to change that button to a link that any
screen reader can see. I suggest a standard listen link. I still
can't get at that symbol reliably.
I sent Audible suggestions about this, and most recently also sent
them the link to the lioncourt.com description of what's involved in
trying to navigate to the sound samples using VoiceOver. When I
first encountered the problem with their switch to embedded Flash, I
didn't realize that it was the fact that Flash does not expose
itself to VoiceOver that is the problem. If you're interested,
here's my most recent post to them from a month and a half ago.
Also, to be fair, they did listen to my inputs early this year about
designing the Audible Kids site to have more accessible playing of
sound samples.
Subject; Making Sound Sample Accessible to Apple's VoiceOver Screen
Reader and Safari
Hello,
Use of the Adobe Flash Player for audio samples poses
accessibility challenges for visually disabled users browsing the
Audible
web site using Apple's built-in screen readers, VoiceOver. The
problem is
that Flash players don't provide any points that can be recognized by
Apple's API (Accessibility guidelines), and therefore there are no
anchor
points to navigate to in order to play sound samples. Since the Flash
format is proprietary, a fix for this must ultimately come from
Adobe, as
it did eventually for Windows screen readers. While Flash is popular,
it's adoption renders part of a web site inaccessible to some users.
Would it be possible to provide an alternative way to play sound
samples
on the Audible.com site? At the UK Audible site, there are separate
links
marked "No flash player?" that can be used. (Your own Audible Kids
has a more accessible design, where the sound sample links can be
used.)
The ironic fact is that of the four sites (Audible in the US, UK,
France,
and Germany), it is only the main Audilble.com that presents this
problem
-- the other three country sites are accessible for playing sound
samples, and the Audible.com site used to be accessible, as well.
There
is an increasing trend for using the VoiceOver screen reader on the
Mac:
(1) first, because it is built into every Apple Computer now produced,
(2) secondly. because of the jump in its capabilities since it
included
iTunes use (starting March 2007), and with the introduction of the
Leopard operating system in Fall 2007, (3) because of the
proliferation
of virtual machine products (VMWare's Fusion and Parallels) that
make it
possible to run both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems on current
Mac computers (making a transition from a Windows screen reader
easier).
and (4) because of Apple's increasing penetration of the educational
market. Given these trends, it would be very desirable if Audible's
web
site design could be made more accessibile for navigation and browsing
with VoiceOver and Safari, and this would be appreciated by a growing
market segment. Please consider this in your web site design by
offering
other ways to sample audiobook content. For background information,
please
see the article on playing Audible samples with VoiceOver at
Lioncourt.com:
http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/07/19/play-samples-on-audiblecom-with-voiceover/
This is offered as a tip, of how to start from the nearest "visible"
link
for VoiceOver (the "Listen" element) and gives directions on how to
move
the mouse cursor around until it falls over the Flash player element
to
activate sample playing. The other accessible alternative ways to
sample
the content would be to either visit the iTunes Store and play the
sample, or visit the UK Audible site, where the samples can be
played.Thank you. Hopefully you can make it easier for people to buy a
great product.
The response was:
Dear Esther,Thank you for contacting Audible.com. Wow, thank you for
the
very detailed email. You brought up very valid points and I completely
understand your frustrations and your concerns. I will definitely pass
this feedback on to the appropriate departments for further review.
I'm
sure that they will take these considerations in to account for future
updates with the Audible web site. Thank you for taking the time to
provide this great feedback on how we can improve the Audible
service and
thank you for your patience while we work to improve the Audible web
site. In addition you can always send your feedback to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] as we love hearing feedback from customers
such as
yourself.Here at Audible, we do truly value and appreciate your
business;
if you need further assistance, please respond to this email or if you
wish, provide me with a contact number and the best available time to
reach you.For additional questions, how to contact us, and hours of
operation, please visit:
http://www.audible.com/contactus
Sincerely,
Jake
Audible.com Technical
Just FYI.
Cheers,
Esther
Randy
On Oct 25, 2008, at 8:09 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Randy and Jacob,
The situation with the new laptops without the numeric keypad
option (on MacBooks these are the models manufactured after
November 2007) is slightly weirder, but basically Jacob is
correct. The slightly weird part comes about because laptops also
support a Universal Access menu feature called "Mouse Keys" that
lets folks who have mobility problems move the position of their
mouse cursor using the numeric keypad keys. When you reference the
central key or "5" in a numeric keypad for the position of the
mouse cursor, pressing the key above it ("2") will move the mouse
cursor up one screen pixel unit, pressing the key below it ("8")
will move the mouse cursor down one screen pixel unit, and
similarly for left ("4") and right ("6") motion. You could also
move diagonally (up and to the left with "1", up and to the right
with "3", etc.)
On the older laptops, there were two ways you could use the
numeric keypad keys with Mouse Keys activated: You could either
first toggle on the numeric keypad by pressing the Numlock (F6)
key. That turned the right hand side of your laptop into a numeric
keypad, so "7-8-9" mapped to the same numbers on the numeric
keypad, "u-i-o" mapped to "4-5-6", and "j-k-l" mapped to "1-2-3".
(All this would be announced correctly in VoiceOver and you could
use keyboard practice mode to check the keys; you also got the
plus, minus, 0, comma, period, and other numpad keys adjacent to
these.) Alternatively, you could press the Fn key in combination
with the Numpad letter keys to get the equivalent Numpad functions
without toggling the Numlock key on: Fn+u, Fn+i, and Fn+o was like
pressing "4-5-6" on a numeric keypad. The "I" key was the center
of the numeric keypad, and corresponded to "5".
Even though Apple removed the Numlock key in the later model
laptops, they still had to support users who needed to use Mouse
Keys to position their cursor. So if you turn Mouse Keys on in
the Universal Access menu under System Preferences, part of your
keyboard works to allow you to move the cursor around, and
pressing Fn+u will move your mouse one screen pixel to the left,
Fn+8 will move your mouse one pixel up, Fn+k moves one pixel down,
and Fn+o moves one pixel right. (I don't really think about this
-- the center key is the "i" key and I just press Fn plus the key
to the left, right, up, or down from the "i" key to move the
cursor in that direction).
As a bonus, when you have Mouse Keys turned on, Fn+i acts like a
hardware click --- just as though you had Numpad Commander turned
on and were pressing the "5" key on a numerica keypad.
So you might wonder whether you can get some of the other Numpad
Commander keys working if you turn Mouse Keys on and enable Numpad
Commander in the VoiceOver preferences. Apple advises you not to
do this in their VoiceOver guide for Leopard. What happens is
that you get the Numpad Commander functions for the partial
numeric keypad that Mouse Keys gives you, but then you can't use
your Command key. Bit of a bummer.
Just FYI. And the reason for using Mouse Keys at all here, is
that there are some instances where Flash doesn't disclose web
page elements to VoiceOver, but where, if you can get there with
your mouse, you can click and access content. As an example, the
sound samples for the (U.S.) Audible.com audiobooks are embedded
flash, but you can play the sound samples on the page if you use
Mouse Keys (or other means) to navigate to the samples. See the
Mac-cessibility quick tip about this at lioncourt.com:
http://www.lioncourt.com/2008/07/19/play-samples-on-audiblecom-with-voiceover/
Cheers,
Esther
On Oct 25, 2008, at 11:50 AM, Randy Stegall wrote:
Ah, I knew there was a reason I did not care for those
keyboards. :)
Randy
On Oct 25, 2008, at 5:45 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote:
If you've got a keyboard with a numpad or an older laptop with
the numpad overlay that is. The past few generations of laptops
as well as the new wireless keyboards lack any sort of numpad
support whatsoever.
On Oct 25, 2008, at 14:42, Randy Stegall wrote:
Using numpad commander numpad plus interacts and numpad minus
stops interacting. Thus there only 2 keys to remember. :)
Hth,
Randy
On Oct 25, 2008, at 4:23 PM, Estelita wrote:
Yeah, if we remember how to do it.
As myself, I always look at my notes when I work on my Mac.
However: I admired the developers' idea by integrating voice
in the Mac, it gives us choice.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Poehlman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of
Mac OS Xby theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.5.6 to Developers
Speaking from a pure design standpoint as a point of fact,
the vo interface
is a brilliant design. if you have trouble with
control-option-shift-down/up arrow, you can most often use
tab and shift tab
and arrows to do many things, you can also use the item
chooser in many
windows. Interacting is brilliant because it provides a way
of interacting
with tthings instead of them getting in the way when you
don't need or want
them.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Estelita" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of
Mac OS Xby
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.5.6 to Developers
I think not only the vo find feature needs refining, there
are more features
that need lots of twigging before we land to where we want.
Personally, I don't really like this interacting command.
We have to remember 4 keys to do this.
Since voiceover is just new, we just hope the developers will
come up with
the key combinations that are easy to remember.
----- Original Message ----- From: "kaare dehard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of
Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.5.6 to Developers
I for one would like to see some touchups done to the vo
find feature,
It's good as far as it goes, I have found that on larger
busier pages it
is somewhat inconsistant as to what and when it will find
something. I
don't see why one day it will find something and behave,
but on another
just for giggles I look for the same thing and it's not
there. Going
windowsish isn't the way I'd like to see things go either,
but I am still
mindful that some refining would certainly be appreciated.
On 24-Oct-08, at 11:08 AM, Krister Ekstrom wrote:
24 okt 2008 kl. 16.48 skrev Jacob Schmude:
Further, I for one hope that Voiceover doesn't borrow too
much from the
Windows screen readers' methods of web navigation.
I couldn't agree with you more there. The last thing i want
is a mac
platform with a windows screen reader. I want this os as
unique and as
good as it is today!
--
/Krister
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