Hi Sieghard, My name is Louise and I am currently doing my Padi open water course in the UK at the moment, only have one more skill to do and I've completed it. I am interested in speaking with other blind divers. I have downloaded the dive plan app which has some of the padi tables in it and found this fairly accessible but it does have some limitations. I've also used the Body Compass app which enabled me to do my compass skills as part of the course as I begrudgingly put my phone in a waterproof bag and crossed my fingers nothing bad happened.
I've been looking at some other projects such as IGills which turn your IPhone into a dive computer but they showed no interest in considering making it accessible. I would be interested in supporting any developer to make dive apps accessible! Would be good to hear about your diving experiences so feel free to contact me off-list at [email protected] Take care, Louise. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sieghard Weitzel Sent: 15 December 2012 7:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Scuba diving and accessible dive logs Hello List, This post may not be of interest to everybody and I wanted to say this upfront in case you want to hit the delete key. I did my HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association) certification in the winter of 2007/2008 and have been diving since. I would like to know if there are any other blind divers on this list since I purchased a dive log app back in March when I was doing some diving on Maui. Unfortunately the app is not very accessible at all at this point. I sort of forgot all about it, but just a few days ago decided to contact the developer. He replied almost immediately and it turns out that he used to work as a dive instructor in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii for 10 years and did a fair amount of diving with handicapped divers. He apologized for not having considered Voiceover accessibility and said he would look into it. I tolde him I would check on the list if there are other blind divers on here who are also iPhone users since I think he fully intends to make his Dive Log app accessible. Just to show how concerned he is about this, here some of his emails: From: Greg McLaughlin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 8:02 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Dive Log for iOS and Voiceover accessibility Hi Sieghard, Thank you very much for bringing the lack of appropriate accessibility support in Dive Log to my attention. I will absolutely look into adding support for the iPhone accessibility features into Dive Log. I'm sorry that I have not done this up to this point in time. As a dive instructor in Kona, Hawaii for over 10 years I had the pleasure of taking many HSA certified divers on dives so I really have no excuse for not having made this effort earlier other than a lack of resources. I will let you know when updates that contain additional accessibility support become available. Again, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Best Regards, Greg And here is his reply after I wrote back and told him that I'd be willing to help by pointing out areas that need improving and also that I'd be happy to test the app after any changes he might make. If you look at the dates you will see that only 2 days went by since my initial email to him and his first reply: From: Greg McLaughlin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 12:46 PM To: Sieghard Weitzel Subject: Dive Log for iOS VoiceOver accessibility Hi Sieghard, I just wanted to let you know that I have been working on adding VoiceOver accessibility support to Dive Log over the past couple of days. The interface needs a fair amount of work to be useful at all with VoiceOver and I think it is probably best if I go through and take a first pass at improving things before you spend any time commenting on the current state of the app. The basic support that Apple includes tries to add by default does not really work very well with complex interfaces like Dive Log. I am able to make some significant improvements just doing some things that seem obvious (like presenting the logbook values in a reasonable order with suitable descriptions). I also use a large number of custom elements in Dive Log that Apple's support does not even try to automatically address so they don't work at all without modification. The bottom line is that there is really no point commenting on the current state of Dive Log because virtually everything needs attention. Once I have taken a first pass through the interface I think it will be much easier for you to highlight changes that would make it easier for you and other VoiceOver users to use Dive Log. So I will let you know when I have an updated version and then, if you are still willing, I will get your feedback. Dive Log is translated into 5 languages, so I'll need to do translations for VoiceOver for the other languages. Also, the interface works quite different on the iPad and iPhone so I'll need to adapt the support for the iPad too. If you are able to work with a beta version of Dive Log when I have that available that would be great since then I can give you an English only version and add the translations once I have your comments integrated. In order to use a beta you'd need to be syncing your iPhone with a Mac or a PC and be willing to send me the unique identifier for your iPhone so that I can have Apple build a provisioning profile that will work with the beta version on your specific iPhone. I can send you the directions for getting me that unique identifier once we are closer to having something for you to try. If running a beta is not possible, we can wait until a new version is posted in the App Store and then make adjustments to that. Given that the current version is unusable with VoiceOver, I'm sure that anything will be a welcome improvement even if it is not perfect. Thanks again for bringing this to my attention. The current state of Dive Log relative to voice over is pretty embarrassing and I am happy to have the opportunity to improve it. Cheers, Greg Given the apparent scope of the changes he has to make I was almost embarrassed to have brought it up considering that apart from myself there may be very few if any other users. Hopefully the word will get out, once the app is more accessible I will certainly ask the HAS organization to make sure the information is made available to its members in their newsletter as this would target the handicapped dive community directly. But if anybody on Viphone is a blind scuba diver or knows somebody who is please feel free to get back to me directly at [email protected] since this is probably not of interest to the group beyond the fact that Greg's response and willingness to make improvements is totally awesome and exemplary. Don't we wish all developers were like that? Regards, Sieghard -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. 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/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. 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/viphone?hl=en.
