Hello Vic, Well thought out message you have there. Let me comment on it a bit, though.
Victor Tsaran wrote: > Hello "VoiceOver On" guys and everyone else on the list, > First of all, I'll start by saying that I am not a Mac fan or anything-one > else's, for that matter. I am only a fan of myself, <just kidding>. > I just wanted to share a couple of my thoughts regarding the latest > "VoiceOver On" podcast because, unfortunately, Twitter's 140-character limit > is way too limiting for my taste and for the purpose of this message. :) > > 1. I think you are correct in saying that many people forget to ask > themselves what they want to do with the computer. This often leads to > uninformed decisions and, subsequently, unjustified or unnecessary purchases. > We all in some ways affected by our friends's opinions, buzz words and > commercials. Regardless, we need to learn to ask those questions so we do not > regret our technology choices that will only slow us down and make less > productive. After all, a computer with an operating system on it are just > tools to help us live our lives like everyone else does . // very healthy way of living, that. It is indeed true that mac has been quite the hipe when it comes to visually impaired computer users. Rightfully so in some cases, blatantly not so in others. > > 2. Is VoiceOver a bad screen reader? Not at all, IMHO. Is it the best? Of > course, not. At times VO feels like a work-around altogether, while at other > time sit feels like the most innovative screen reader on the market. It > really has both. // This is quite true. It is however the distribution of the two that has irked us, the workarounds being in the areas we need and the innovative features appearing in areas we consider secondary. > > Pros: > - VoiceOver has a pretty good built-in help which most users probably never > read. // True. The same can be said about pretty much any SR on the market. > - VO is a pretty flexible screen reader, especially on Lion, EG through the > "Activities" feature. // true, to a degree. Windows screenreaders have a number of ways to interact with the content on screen. Be it through the object model, accessibile descriptions, MSAA, the java access bridge etc. Scripting capabilities of these screenreaders can force these programs to prefer one method over another or even provide custom ways of reading the screen if the standard ways do not work. A prime example of this is the hotspotClicker project. In VoiceOver, it is either accessible, or it is not. True, you can script VoiceOver using AppleScript but I am not sure how extensive these capabilities are at this point, mainly due to a complete lack of documentation on this matter. > - Good support for Mail, chat, Calendar, basic text editing with TextEdit, > Webkit-based browsers (Chrome, Safari, Lightning, iCab etc). // Again, true to a degree. It should be expected that a screenreader covers the basic apps the OS comes bundled with. This has been a lacking point of most notably android, where the stock mail and webbrowser apps were not accessible until the release of ICS. In safari however, you interact with a webpage completely different then a sighted user. The page is divided into ' blocks' if you will, probably defined by HTML tags behind the scenes. Although this does give you a better idea of the structure of a page, which can be beneficial in some cases, it can slow you down when you are reading a long HTML document. Imagine this : Some blog post lacks the proper <p> tags, meaning the entire blog post is read in one fell swoop. Then, imagine you have Growl set up to give you voice alerts. You will be reading the post, some Growl alert pops up. The alert will be spoken and VoiceOver stops speaking, causing you to have to start from the beginning. Yes, you can interact with the text in these cases, but it is another extra step you have to take if you want to properly read a text. Of course this whole scenario is because of the offending blog not using HTML right, but you wouldn't have this problem using something like NVDA. A second point is the in the podcast covered issue of being virtualy unable to select blocks of text on a webpage. Something that is as good as instantaneous with a windows screenreader. In my line of study this is quite an important feature I use at least daily, if not more. VO is ok at the basics, but I think these comments do not miss their mark. Feel free to disagree, I don't mind a bit of discussion. > - A consistent support for applications that are designed wit accessibility > in mind, EG "YoruFukurou Twitter client" and many others. // That is because Apple has given their standard components the correct accessibility properties. The same can be said for .net apps on Windows, the wxPython library, the Java SWT, win32 MSAA support ...... > > Cons: > - Too complicated system of shortcuts. However, Quicknav and Trackpad > navigation eliminates the need for many of of those shortcuts. // small problem with quicknav and single letter navigation arises when you notice that quicknav isn't smart enough to notice you are on an editbox and therefore acts on your keypresses as single navigation keys when you are trying to enter text, similar to NVDA when you don't hit enter on a form control first. You therefore have to toggle quicknav when you want to type. Again, this is a small annoyance but can get quite annoying when you have to do it often. > - Does not provide efficient environment with production applications like > Pages, Keynote and Numbers. // true. Apple is committed to accessibility, but if they want applications to be accessible, they themselves will have to set the standards. Currently they are not doing this correctly. > - Apple doesn't do a good job of promoting VoiceOver and/or interface with > the the end-user. > > If I had to pick one of the most innovative features of VoiceOver that will > have a profound impact on how blind people interact with technology in the > near future, it would be the "Trackpad Commander". I understand this > particular tool may not appeal to the generation of users who are fairly firm > in their computing habits but those young and adventurous should be taught to > give up their keyboards, especially for exploration purposes. // Yes and no. I agree that the trackpad commander is an innovatie tool, but I think the trackpad is just a bit too large to properly do the gestures like flicking . The flicks become more like 'swipes' at least in my opinion. > > 3. So, what's the problem and why VoiceOver doesn't let me be productive? > This is where I feel the podcast participants lead us down the wrong path of > thinking. Instead of blaming everything on VoiceOver, we should instead > concentrate our efforts on applications themselves. > A good example would be the following: Pages and Keynote are not accessible > because of VoiceOver but primarily because their developers, yes, Apple, did > not expose the right accessibility interface to VoiceOver. If you removed all > the JAWS scripts from the JAWS application directory, you would, to your > surprise, quickly find out that most of the Windows applications you thought > were accessible actually are not. // And you are proving my point right there in the earlier messages. Apps are fine with voiceOver as long as the right accessibility interfaces are available to VoiceOver. These scripts you speak of, however, were not made by the app vendors. They were created either by users of the JAWS screenreader, or freedom scientific themselves. This means that they must have somehow found a way to get around the inherent accessibility problems the app provides. I currently cannot say VoiceOver has the same functionality. > > I know that NVDA developers expressed a similar concern on several > occasions, namely, that blind users tend to blame their screen reader first > before they blame the application itself. > And you know what? I completely understand why users do this. A regular user > does not have any insights into what makes their computing experience > accessible. Since they interface with the computer via a screen reader, if > something goes wrong, the screen reader is to blame. // Indeed this is quite a common phenomenon. I myself am going to be studying computer science later this year, and I am teaching myself all I can about how screenreaders talk to applications and vice verza. As you can see, I do not blame VoiceOver for everything, but I do point out it has some significant flaws that are not just application- specific. > So, we simply need more education. And this is where I wish the podcast > authors could spend more time and energy. > > In summary, it is correct to say that newcomers to technology should first > familiarize themselves wit choices available on the market and decide which > ones are the most suitable to their needs. > It is , however, totally wrong to blame everything on VoiceOver and blame the > lack of productivity tools on the screen reader at hand. // My conclusion: You brought up a number of valid points. I hope my comments have made my opinion on the matter clear, and I hope you can see I am not just a raving lunatic but am actively thinking about these issues. VoiceOver has come a long way in the years it has existed, but IMHO it needs to mature more before I can call upon it reliably. In some areas it has surpassed all windows screenreaders, and in some areas it is on par with JAWS 4.5. > > Just FYI, here is what I use my Mac for and the kinds of apps that serve me > well. > - YoruFukurou client for Twitter. > - Textedit for wordprocessing. > - Chrome and Safari for web browsing. > - Mail and iCal for my corporate needs. > - Garage Band, VLC and iTunes for music. > - XCode and Dashcode for programming. // This is my personal opinion, and I find it very hard to put it into words. I'd like your take on it. Xcode , the ditor, it feels somewhat clunky ...that is the closest I can get to it ...when I compare it to good ol' Notepad or eclipse on windows. Is this just me? > - Cyberduck for FTP uploads and downloads. > - Terminal for all the Unix-related stuff (geeky). // Except for terminal not being very reliable in reading incoming text automagically the way linux and puTTY with NVDA do. > - VMWare 4 with Windows 7 if I ever need to jump into Windows for testing or > otherwise. > > How is this not a productive environment? Well, for me it is. > > Thanks, > Vic -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
