As mentioned previously, Flash working with VO is pretty much in Adobe's
court and they have recently, finally, committed to making it
accessible. I don't think emailing Apple about it will do much good.
One interesting bit is that Adobe is talking about adopting ARIA for
roles and states, the same as HTML. If you're not familiar with this W3C
standard 'working draft' it enables extra attributes to be attached to
objects so assistive technology can figure out what's going on. For
example, in a web browser I might construct a 'slider' input with a long
skinny horizontal box and another box laid on top for the thumb
'grabber'. Then with some javascript I track a mousedown on the thumb or
track the arrow keys and slide the thumb back and forth, updating some
value that the slider controls. This is fine for the visual mouse or
keyboard-only user but all a screen reader has to go on is a pile of
empty boxes and has no idea that they form a slider widget. So with ARIA
we add markup such as a role of slider, min values, max value and
current value. So the javascript that does all the visual display also
updates these ARIA attributes. The browser then passes this info on to
the screen reader to present to the user in whatever whey they think is
best.
This means piles of boxes that make up a widget now get presented as a
usable thing via the screen reader. So while Flash has had some screen
reader support on Windows, it still lacked basic presentation of widgets
for a screen reader. With supporting ARIA that should get fixed just
like it is being fixed for standard web widgets. One snag is that the
standard is still a draft and incomplete, so AT, browser makers etc are
going to hesitate at implementing a whole lot until it's all done.
Specifically on Safari the ARIA support is very weak. Current the best
experience seems to be FF with NVDA or Jaws. The Safari guys have
committed to ARIA so hopefully support will become more robust. This
means a whole word of browser-based widgets like tab panels, pull-down
menus, calendars, spinners etc will soon be accessible. Until then it's
a gaping hole in web accessibility for a number of presentation
technologies.
CB
William Windels wrote:
Hello all,
I agree that Apple is doing great efforts to make their products accessible and
I love the mac for most of my tasks but the mac and the corresponding os are
not the only ones on the market...
They do good things like the integration of their screenreader in all of their
products and because of that , most of the tasks on the mac are logic.
It gives also a good impulse to the computermarket for blind people.
I mean e.g. the gestures on the trackpad of a macbook. This is something new
and very interesting feature that they have created.
Also a great advantage of apple and their accessibility-policy is the feature
that mac-users can give their feedback, questions and comments to a special
address.
I have the experience that they listen to us but of course , it takes some time.
but, and this is perhaps the other side of implementing accessibility without paying more,
the mac is missing some features that are available on a winds pc in combination with most of the screenreaders.
Here , I have a list of things that I miss on a mac:
1- working with flash on websites;
2- automatic language detection on webpages (like on the iphone);
3- configurable representation of controls on the brailledisplay (this is also
good for people that have a little braille display);
4- creation of a verbosity level where you can define which messages should be
spoken and/or which messages should be shown on the braille display;
5- setting webspots in voiceover for whole domains (e.g. www.google.be) in
stead of the current viewed webpage (Window-eyes can handle this);
6- dragging and dropping with the keyboard so that we can also cut elements in
the finder (and actions in other programs)
This is a possibility in voiceover to do that but I am not shore if it is
working and it don't give the same result.
7- Selecting tekst in a browser without complex commando instructions;
And then also 1 feature about the os:
the system of assigning hockeys for menu-items in the system-prefferences : tab
=keyboard , hotkeys. This system is not working all the time, not all keys are
aloud like function keys and services can't have a hockey in snow leopard.
I would ask to everybody here to send accessibility one or more of this things
that you find interesting or necessary.
Or you can give also other suggestions of course ;)
If you do so, pls write it in your own words and not just copy pasting.
Otherwise , they will think that's something like spamming and perhaps they
won't take it serious...
If you have a suggestion/comment to me, pls mail me private:
[email protected]
thanx in advance,
best regards,
William
Op 7-apr-2010, om 23:01 heeft Ricardo Walker het volgende geschreven:
Hi,
Lol. The Jaws example was just that. An example. You can insert whatever
screenreader into the blank you wish. :)
On Apr 7, 2010, at 4:43 PM, Nicole Hutchins wrote:
I have to somewhat agree with you.
I only disagree where Jaws is related since I'm an ex user of the product and I
can speak from experience that there are just too many things I couldn't do
with Jaws that I can do with Apple's screen reader. But yes, if something
better came along, I'd definitely be willing to explore my options there.
Nicole
On Apr 7, 2010, at 4:22 PM, Ricardo Walker wrote:
Hi,
I agree entirely. I think Apple has done great things regarding accessibility
but, when you pledge lifetime loyalty to a company I think you are doing
yourself a disservice. There will come a time where a company will just do
something that will make the use of their product less justifiable or,
something better will just come a long. If you just stick with them because of
their name they won't work as hard for you. For example, If HP said all there
notebooks would come with a screenreader like Jaws or windows eyes, and you get
upgrades for the life of your PC, I think most sensible blind people would have
to at least explore the option. If you like something buy all means it is your
right to scream it from the mountain tops but, it can sometimes work against
you as far as credibility. If I hear someone say I buy a certain brand no
matter what, I instantly devalue there opinion on said product or brand.
On Apr 7, 2010, at 3:45 PM, Ignasi Cambra wrote:
For example, none of apple's computers these days come with BluRay. I don't
need BluRay technology at this point so don't care, but everyone else is making
computers that have it. We can go on and on about things that Apple doesn't
give to their users. As of now, their products work really great for me and I
love them. But there is no reason for me not to switch to something else in the
future if I like it better, or is more efficient.
On Apr 7, 2010, at 2:43 PM, Olivia Norman wrote:
LOL! I do kind of worship apple, but I have a hard time wondering what products
could be better than apple's for a variety of reasons, ease of use,
accessibility, design, etc. I could go on, but will refrain!
Olivia
On Apr 7, 2010, at 2:30 PM, Ignasi Cambra wrote:
The thing is that some people find it cool to show that they are using an
Iphone, a BlackBerry or whatever. Some people just don't care. I personally use
Apple stuff all day because they help me to be productive and they do
everything I want them to do. But it has already been mentioned before on this
list that Apple is doing things that are not all that good, particularly
regarding patents. We can't forget that accessibility should be a right for us,
and not something that we should be surprised to find right out of the box. Off
course it's great that Apple decided to implement VO on all their devices, but
honestly if something that I consider better comes out, I will consider
switching. I will not stick to Apple just because it's Apple. It just doesn't
make any sense to me to warship a company like that.
On Apr 6, 2010, at 3:24 PM, Bryan Smart wrote:
Yeh, but if they're using peoples' e-mail to advertise, they should be paying
for that privledge.
What-ever. No one there cares what I think about stuff like this, anyway.
*smile* I have seen Blackberrys do this, and I think that it is just as lame.
If I'm sending e-mail from a free mail account, then they can advertise in my
mail, since they're providing the mail free as an ad supported service. I
suppose I just think that Apple stuff should be a little more classy than that.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Olivia Norman
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 8:56 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [macvoiceover] Re: Apple Announces iPhone OS 4.0 Event for
08/April/2010-- The Mac-cessibility Network - News [Lioncourt.com]
Well. Cell companies do it, too. They'll say sent from my verizon wireless
blackberry, or sent from blackberry by AT&T. Marketing, I guess. I kind of
like the word to know I use apple products, so it's Alright with me :) Sent from
the future
On Apr 6, 2010, at 8:52 AM, Bryan Smart wrote:
Coincidentally, why do iPhones and iPads always throw that "Sent from my iPhone/iPad" remark in
there? I could write "Sent from my Nokia E71", or "Sent from my MacBook Pro"., but who
cares what device I'm reading mail with?
I think its shameless and very noobish for Apple to put that in there by default. Be
prepared to see posts all the time with "Sent from my iPad". I think that it
will soon become a kind of kick me sign.
Bryan
Sent from my MacBook, with Microsoft Outlook, over Charter Internet.
lol
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Olivia Norman
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 4:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [macvoiceover] Re: [macvoiceover] Apple Announces iPhone OS
4.0 Event for 08/April/2010-- The Mac-cessibility Network - News
[Lioncourt.com]
Another piece of technology I. Will want!
Sent from my iPad
On Apr 5, 2010, at 3:50 PM, Russell Solowoniuk <[email protected]> wrote:
<http://www.lioncourt.com/2010/04/05/apple-announces-iphone-os-4-0-eve
nt-for-08april2010/>
http://www.lioncourt.com/2010/04/05/apple-announces-iphone-os-4-0-even
t-for-08april2010/
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