Hi, Interesting mail Chris. I am smiling here because not 5 minutes ago I was walking back from lunch with a colleague and, having shown them the accessible iPhone over lunch (I'm in a CS department and they're all geeks so loved it) I commented that I reckoned the new trackpad and iPhone interaction was the most innovative screen-access solution I'd seen. Just a question though. Going way way back into the dark ages, do you remember the OS warp screenreader designed by IBM in the early 90s? This built on their DOS access solution and was a very nice screenreader. I was only a 1st year undergrad at the time so I'm relatively clueless regarding this, but wasn't OS2 designed with accessibility in mind? I seem to remember IBM built the necessary hooks into the OS. Oh and sorry for dragging this off-topic, but I'm genuinely curious. Cheers Dónal
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Hofstader Sent: 15 December 2009 13:04 To: [email protected] Cc: A place where VoiceOver nerds can discuss almost anything they want. Subject: Re: questions about NVDA Microsoft didn't exactly "invent" accessibility standards but, rather, were pulled into them kicking and screaming. In their defense, though, they had a whole bunch of issues ripping their accessibility efforts apart. The AT companies threatened anti-trust action if MS actually tried to make Narrator into an even credible solution. The AT companies through fits if MS changed things "under the hood" in a manner that would break miserable techniques like video hooking. AT companies (except GW) fought MSAA and, when it came out, they refused to use it as their proprietary heuristics would break. Because MS really had no reasonable control of a screen reader for Windows, they ended up with a landscape of solutions filled with nasty hacks, kludgerous work-arounds and some dark magic that would often cause major league instability. Apple has the good fortune of starting with a clean slate and a pretty good accessibility API from which VO can safely derive data. Solving the stability problem inherent in most screen access tools on other platforms is, in and of itself, a huge step forward. Apple's use of semantic containers with which the user must interact is a great idea (one that us research types have been discussing for a long time). Once a person has a decent level of knowledge about the program, navigation takes far fewer keystrokes and, using the spatial relationships between such containers provides valuable contextual information. In fact, I think more of these containers should be added - all of the controls in iTunes from volume to search to LED, etc. could be put into a nice box, given a nice name and let one hop right over it if they are just trying to get to the sources or song lists. The TrackPad Commander is probably the most important innovation in screen access tools since JAWS 3.31 (1999()()and its first ever true virtual buffer for the web. Trackpad Commander provides context in a way we've never had and once one has grown accustomed to using it, the increase in efficiency is amazing. VO still has a bunch of stuff to do but it's moving along faster than any such program I've ever seen before. cdh On Dec 14, 2009, at 4:15 PM, Chris Blouch wrote: If I recall correctly, Windows sort of stumbled into accessibility as far as keyboard controls because early Windows machines didn't have a mouse. So they had to work pretty hard at making sure every menu and widget was usable from the keyboard, at least until the user got tired of it and went out to but one of those fancy rodents. Apple shipped the whole package of OS, computer and mouse. So they never had to deal with full keyboard control as a barrier to entry for any substantial part of their user population. In some ways they have the advantage of years of hindsight and a clean slate. If you were to do it all over again from scratch, how would you make a GUI accessible? Microsoft may have "invented accessibility standards" with their keyboard controls and later with MSAA, but I think Apple did a lot of things in a novel and better way. The whole idea of drilling down through a UI or content by interacting is pretty intuitive if you're not trained to think through everything linearly. Some of the limits of linear navigation can be reduced with jumping around to landmarks or search, but linear just doesn't scale well as things become more complex. Get me to the right building, then the right floor, then hall, then room, then chair. It's a hierarchy of information and if structured well I can ignore lots of distractions because they fall outside my context of interest. Apple's navigation works in a similar manner and once up to speed (both myself and the implementation), will be easier to use with lower cognitive load. CB erik burggraaf wrote: I can't whole hartedly agree with you on this one. Given the level of functionality built in to voice over, it would be rediculous to expect developers to try to compete. On top of that, there are other factors in accessibility besides a screen reader. There is your own level of proficiency for one thing. Then there are the limitations of your opperating system and the design of your software application for others. Taking your web page links as an example, they may not read in safari. But if you use the latest version of web kit then it might deal with the design of the page differently and allow the links to show. Similarly, if you view the page in firefox or opera it may render the page totally differently and provide a higher level of access using the same voiceover screen reader. Or the links may be designed completely without labels and there may be nothing there for a screen reader to get a handle on, in which case it would make no difference what browser and screen reader you used. In the case of microsoft, they invented accessibility standards. Then they berried the standards in a locked filing cabinet in a locked washroom down in the basement with a keep out sign on the door. Few people, if any, paid attention to the accessibility standards, even microsoft itself. It took many years to make web browsing functional, even though there were standards almost from the beginning. Windows screen reader manufacturers used to have to re-invent the wheel for every new os or browser upgrade. Remember when window-eyes 4.5 came out and it was accessible with adobe pdf? It could have been that way from the beginning, but adobe didn't use any of the accessibility standards and then had to rewrite huge chunks of their code. Apple on the other hand, is setting the accessibility standards for it's OS, Providing the tools people need to take advantage of accessibility, and herding the sheep onto the accessible towline. They aren't just writing a screen reading package. They are writing an accessible OS and educating come forcing developers into creating accessible software. It's taking time, but you can see the results. Every safari update, every OS update, every update for your third party software, all bring some new piece of the puzzle and offer up something more we can use. It's got to be tough for a third party screen reader developer to compete, and if you wait a month or two or three, a browser update, website update, or OS update will suddendly render your content useable where it wasn't before. Not only that, but the cost to you will be minimal or none. Proof that not all monopolies are tiranical, or that sometimes one person stepping up and taking charge is better than a motly co llection of competing factions clawing their way over every one else. Best, erik burggraaf A+ certified technician and user support consultant. Phone: 888-255-5194 Email: [email protected] On 2009-12-09, at 8:04 PM, carlene knight wrote: Hi: Though I like Voiceover and the OSX format, I do wish there was a secondary program like NVDa as it can read some web pages that neither JAWS nor Voiceover can. One in particular is a lot of the link labels at www.eddietrunk.com <http://www.eddietrunk.com/> . On Dec 9, 2009, at 4:38 PM, erik burggraaf wrote: Hello, NVDA is a free open source screen reader. It is a competater of jaws or window-eyes. It offers braille support, dll and sapi software synthesizer support, msaa support, scripting capability, and very good to excellent support for open source aplications like firefox, thunderbird, and open office. It doesn't do all that well with microsoft applications, but it will give you the basics. It can't simulate the mouse pointer the way jaws and window-eyes can, but it does have a feature called object navigation that will let you get to non tabbed objects in a limited way. It comes with espeak synthesizer, which is fast and stable. It isn't anything like human sounding speech though. If you care about it sounding like a person, you're gonna hate it. I am a bit old though and I fondly remember my accent sa. None of the modern natural sounding voices comes close to soundind as good as that thing in my book. NVDA is not for high profile job aplications yet, but the development has been steady and they've got a really viable product for common computer tasks. Many of my clients could use it very happily and never miss jaws. Best, erik burggraaf A+ certified technician and user support consultant. Phone: 888-255-5194 Email: [email protected] On 2009-12-09, at 1:53 PM, Christina wrote: So onto my questions. What is NVDA? I do not have a windows screen reader like jaws or window eyes so I'm curious as to what this is and how robust this is. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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