On Nov 27, 2008, at 3:47 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
tee wrote:
Quote BIM: I don’t see that the W3c intention and the JAWS screen
reader implementation are necessarily at odds; JAWS has a “duty” to
keep users informed that they are in the same group, and this is
one way of achieving it.
Has a "duty" as being overly helpful that turns to absurdity and
annoyance?
Absurdity only if you're not wise about the length/wording of your
legend text.
Well, Patrick, this is obviously a subjective point of view and can
easily turns to a petty argument, so I will just skip it :)
Annoyance...that's surely up to screenreader users to decide for
themselves? Unless you've got feedback from actual screenreader
users stating that it's annoying, it sounds a touch patronising as a
sighted developer to call the feature "annoying".
Will one's background and culture influence how one views at an issue?
When I was a kid, I routinely help walked an old wise blind man to
park, shop and his friend's home. He taught me how to 'see' the
surroundings around me; decades later I looked back, I realized he
helped me developed my sensitivity and guided me see things in
different ways that my sighted eyes wouldn't have seen.
Accessibility to me, is all about "people oriented" (with am eastern
philoshopy touch) and common sense; "Mankind is the center of the
universe way of 'People oriented' " is not my idea of accessibility.
I studied Laozi (Tao De Jing) and Zhuangzi (the famous dream of the
butterfly) long before I touched any western philosophical and design
theories - therefor, in a nutshell, anything that is overly done, is
un-natured thus creating conflict (annoyance) between people and the
'objects', despite the good intention.
Back to the "people oriented": Accessibility to me is about problem
solving through design and user interface hence create a good user
experience. Though I have never gotten any feedback from actual
screenreader users and I honestly haven't gotten many interactions
with blind people, but I speak to common sense and follow nature.
Common sense tells me that we human are highly adaptive; the creator
gave us 5 senses: hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell. If we lose
any one of the senses, another 4 will adapt, and develops even better,
sharper, more sensitive' 'ability' that people who have 5 normal
senses likely wouldn't have developed.
A good user interface is one that harmonize/reduces conflict between
the 'software/hardware/machine' and the user that makes one feels
comfortable, relax and ease of use, the same goes to a good design. As
I gradually learning more about Accessibility guideline and have
actually paid more attention to it, I feel I will have better chance
to create more accessible sites using common sense than relying on
dead theory and data through user study other shows me (note, I am not
saying user study isn't important)
Does BIM a memebr here too? I am sorry, but I think his logic and
reason are at fault.
Is it relevant to this discussion that Bim is actually a blind
screenreader user herself?
Well, somewhat. But I still think her logic and reason are a bit at
fault.
I insist because I think she maybe only viewing the issue on the
surface, that is, "People-oreiented" yet lack the basic knowledge of
'people' , and I am afraid as a blind person (no insulted intention
here), her logic fell short for other blind people.
I have no doubt it is helpful to screen reader users for screen reader
to implement read legend text on every label set, but if a screen
reader makes it a Default, it is arrogant, lack of common sense, not
helping at all but create conflict to its users and it's a Bad
interface design.
Common sense tells me it maybe a bit intimidating for a blind person
to use Screen reader the first few times; common sense also tells me
unless that person also suffers other disability that affects his/her
ability on memory, or maybe, with a rarely and extreme possibility
that a Screen Reader that didn't implement 'read legend text on every
label set' causes psychological traumatic effect to the user (should
this be the case, he/she probably needs special medical treatment and
use of Screen Reader is probably not recommended or not permitted by
doctor). I believe, most Screen reader users are just like you and
me, use a software base on the common knowledge on how things works
and our intelligence to able to tell what's a page about based on the
first few words or sentence.
Let me repeat: If we lose any one of the senses, another 4 will adapt,
and develop even better, sharper, more sensitive' 'ability' that
people who have 5 normal senses likely wouldn't have developed.
That being said, it's highly unlikely for a Screen Reader user to
realize when a form begins and when a form ends when the screen reader
read out the first label set. Make no mistake, I fully believe
fieldset and legends are important elements and they must be used
accordingly to help screen reader's user, but, I argue,
An annoyance is an annoyance whether the legend is one word or 10
words long. One word of legend text, if repeated 10 times to me
over and over on every page I visit. It's an annoyance.
But is it an annoyance to somebody who can't actually see your form
and has to rely on auditory cues to know where they are within the
form?
**************************************
that it makes no differences and help nothing to screen reader user
for a short form that contains a few label sets like this:
<form action="">
<p>Enter login info:</p> <!-- substitue the p tag for your
favorite tag -->
<label for="emailaddress">Email <span class="required">*</span></
label>
<input name="login[username]" id="emailaddress" type="text" />
<label for="psw">Password <span class="required">*</span></label>
<input name="login[password]" type="password" id="psw" />
<button class="login-btn" type="submit">Login</button>
</form>
In conclusion, what you are saying, and what BIM presumed and the way
JAWs reads the legend text, seems to me, is a comon Western concept
that: "you are guilty unless proven otherwise"– but in the case of
accessibility, it is : "every Screen Reader user is 'at disadvantage,
not bright (somewhat stupid?!), cannot focus, need extra overly done
help". And vola! Following the logic that lacks the common sense, we
make their user experience a hell!
tee
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