Hi All! > I appreciate that kttsd can have many useful applications. I differ > with your statement below, however: > > > But screen readers do not help partially sighted users, users with learning > > difficulties, or people who simply love to have system notifications or IRC > > messages spoken.
I, too, have to differ with this statement. As someone who teaches users with visual impairments and who also happens to have been diagnosed with some sort of visual processing problem, I often find myself using the AT I teach even though I am not visually impaired. It just makes things easier for me. A lot easier. I don't think that the existing technologies for users with visual impairments are "too special purpose." Instead I would argue that they provide more information and features than are needed by the average (sighted) user who has a learning disability. For instance, I find that the color and tinting options available in one of the Windows screen magnifiers works wonders for me, as does the onscreen highlighting from another product, but I don't need the magnification. Similarly, I find the speech output from screen readers to be very beneficial, but I don't need to hear things like the type of control I just landed on or the line I arrowed to in my document because I can see these things. That's where verbosity options come in handy! :) Were it not for the fact that I already owned these products due to my career, I probably wouldn't purchase them and would instead look for other alternatives -- not because these products are too specialized but because of the price tag: You're paying quite a bit for all of those nifty features that users with visual impairments need that you yourself don't need. Plus, because these products assume that you are visually impaired, you have to jump through a few hoops to configure them to suit your needs. But that's in the Windows world. While I know nothing about GOK and very little about Gnopernicus, I do see the potential for Orca's capabilities to be expanded -- down the road, Will; not now! ;-) -- in such a way that it addresses the visual and non-visual access needs of users with learning disabilities, the growing population of seniors who want to use a computer, and folks who just think speech output is cool (or handy at the end of a long day!). My only concern would be: Could this be accomplished while maintaining ease of use and avoiding a bloated application? Just my $0.02.... Take care. Joanie _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
