I don’t think he said that the clicking should be obvious if you hadn’t
used a mouse. I think he said we needed to know it and maybe understand
it. Can’t remember for sure. I know what click and double click are, but
I don’t know what it means to right click or left click either. Course I
may not be a great user either. LOL.
Cindy
*From:*Jean Menzies [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Thursday, February 4, 2016 11:14 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: Improving my teaching approach and/or sensitivity
Hi Brian,
First, perhaps a better way than asking “How blind are you”, might be to
simply ask straight up if the person has any useful residual vision that
would be helpful when learning the computer. They will know the answer.
lol.
As for directional elements, I am congenitally blind and have no problem
with that so far as it goes. However, because JAWS works in a linear
fashion, the visual layout doesn’t always match up. For example, when
people tell me to click on a link on the left of the page, that has no
meaning so far as JAWS is concerned. So, that kind of direction is
pointless. Yes, thee are arrows to move left, right, up and down, but
that is about as far as is important for me in terms of directional
visual concept of layout.
And, you said:
I mean, I realize that a screen reader user does not literally click or
right click, but they had ought to know that click translates to select
(most of the time), double click translates to activate ...
Gee, huh? I’ve been using JAWS since 2001 and am a fairly decent user. I
didn’t know that. I thought click was like pressing enter or spacebar to
activate something. I thought double click was like right clicking. And
speaking of “clicking”, I still don’t get left and right clicks per se.
I know that right click is like bringing up the context menu, but I’m
not sure what a left click really is.
I just was wondering why you thought this concept of “clicking” should
be obvious to anyone who has never used a mouse.
Jean
*From:*Brian Vogel <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Thursday, February 4, 2016 7:35 AM
*To:*[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:*Improving my teaching approach and/or sensitivity
Hello All,
I have recently been e-mailing back and forth with several
members here off-forum about topics and issues that go beyond the scope
of discussion here. In the course of a specific exchange, and from the
previous occurrence here of someone telling me, "that's a sighted
answer," I composed the following in an e-mail, which I'll share here
verbatim:
--------------------------------
I actually try to avoid purely visual descriptions to the
extent I can. You may find the following amusing, and it took me a long
time to get comfortable asking it, but the first question I ask any of
my clients when we start tutoring is, "How blind are you?" I often have
very sketchy information about what residual vision, if any, they have
and it's critical to know that (and whether it will remain) as far as
how to approach certain things. I then follow up with, "Has your vision
always been this way or could you see previously?" Both of these
answers factor in to whether I ever mention specific colors, for
instance, because the actuality, as opposed to the abstract concept, of
color is meaningless to those who've never had the sensory experience of
color. Everyone, though, has to have the concepts of left, right, up,
down in both the vertical and horizontal planes, so I don't hesitate to
say something like "at the lower right" because I know that that
translates in a very specific way once you have any orientation at all
to "how you get where" in relation to your own computer screen. If this
is a bad idea, for reasons I can't fathom as a sighted person, I welcome
suggestions as to what is more appropriate and efficient for
communicating location information for access. Mind you, I do use
specifics like "in the main menu bar," "in the insert ribbon," "4th
button over by tabbing," etc..
I've never understood "the furor" that some people get into
over the use of common computer actions like click, right click,
triple-finger double-tap, etc. I mean, I realize that a screen reader
user does not literally click or right click, but they had ought to know
that click translates to select (most of the time), double click
translates to activate, there exists a "right click" function to allow
you to bring up context menus (which are often a godsend), etc. This is
a situation where I actually feel it's incumbent on the student to ask
if they do not understand what a specific "sighted" reference which is
what they'll always be hearing from someone other than a fellow screen
reader user translates to in "screen-readerese." You're never going to
get a sighted assistant telling you to "press spacebar to
select/activate" something, they'll tell you either to select it or to
click on it. If you go to training classes for non-screen reader
software you absolutely have to know and understand how common computing
control jargon "translates" for you. Mind you, if I've got an absolute
beginner I teach the translation at the outset but what I don't do is
use screen readerese unless it's essential. I think that limits
independence rather than building it.
--------------------------------
Just as I said yesterday that it is members of the cohort here, not I,
who are best able to determine if a given document is accessible via
JAWS. The cohort here is also better able to instruct me in where my
assumptions, presumptions, techniques may either be completely wrong or
in need of some improvement.
The only thing I will ask is that if something in the above is
considered really offensive, please don't excoriate me about that, but
make me aware that it is offensive and why. I am honestly trying to get
better at what I do both as a tutor and as a sighted person working with
people with visual impairments. I know that my frame of reference is
different than yours, or at least could be, and that it may be in need
of adjustment. The only way I can make that adjustment is to put my
thoughts out there and ask for help.
I'll close with a quotation from Carlin Romano that I think has direct
parallels here, "When intellectuals take their ideas to the mass market,
they are not just doing a good deed for the mass market. They are doing
a good thing for themselves. The mass marketplace of ideas proves to be
a better critic of big assumptions in any field than is the specialized
discipline, or one's peers."
Brian
