[nvda] Re: teaching windows with screen access

Hello,
sorry guys for just jumping in but I have got one point which I see as a most important. When training someone to use computer keystrokes have to be presented and it is nice if the student can remember most of them. But the thing I can't accept is learning sets of keystrokes to do certain action. For example to open a document in notepad press ctrl+O then press shift+tab then arrow up/down to find your file and then hit enter. I think it is necessary for everyone to at least partially get used to basics user interface concepts to be able to recognize certain types of controls or common dialogs. If one has remembered a set of command keys to perform some action he may easily mix things up or at worst forgot some key and at that point whole sequence is broken. 

Peter


John Greer  wrote:
Not true, I train people on Jaws and the computer every day, I just don't get paid for it so I don't have to train people the way the blind services say I have to. 
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Grimsby Jr." <jimgrims@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:50 AM
Subject: [nvda] Re: teaching windows with screen access
jon you have clearly never trained any one. here is what you get when you 
do what you say we should do.  ok we teach them lets say how to do these
things in note pad. we tell them it works every where. ok grate they can 
do it in note pad then you move on to word.  guess what they want you to
teach them again what you just showed them in word pad note pad etc in word and when you tell them it works the same way they then want to know why you will not teach them. your ideas are good but when you tell me how you make 
it work I will do it.  assumeing the state lets you talk about windows
verses jumping right in to word.

Jim Grimsby Jr.
skype: Jim.grimsby
I say what I mean! I mean what I say!


-----Original Message-----
From: nvda-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nvda-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf 
Of John Greer
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 9:25 PM
To: nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [nvda] Re: teaching windows with screen access
Well first order of business is to teach them the commands that are standard 

to windows and then move on to the more advanced keys exclusive to the
screen reader. Write them a list of hotkeys so they can refer back to them instead of just having them try to remember them all. Yep even in the age of computers their is still a use for good old fashion braille on good old fashion paper. Write it out for them step by step on what they need to do to check their email in Outlook Express etc. Because even the most seasoned 

veteran forgets what to do if it is not often that they have to do it.
----- Original Message ----- From: "erik burggraaf" <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 9:10 PM
Subject: [nvda] Re: teaching windows with screen access
John, I'm a good trainer and I agree with you, but what should be and what 


is are two different things.
Training must be taylored to the needs of the student. I would love it if 


I could teach evry one to press alt to bring up the menu bar evry time
they see a new program and browse the menues to see what in the main this 
new program does.  I would love it if the people I trained pressed f1,
then control tab and then tab. That would take them to a list of keywords
that the program uses. Pressing enter on a keyword then pressing f6 will 
tell them all about the keyword if the program's index is any good.

Unfortunately the people I train don't want to learn windows.  They want
to learn how to read, reply to, and forward an email. They want to learn 
how to update an addressbook entry.  They want to learn how to rip a cd.
They want to learn how to do a letter template in word, then an envelope
template, then a fax template.  never mind that the steps for all 3 are
more or less the same.
I haven't figured out how to interest people in the fact that good windows
programs opperate on a similar lay out and set of principles, and you can 
predict what will happen and intuit what might be where based on the
principles of windows. I use that philosophy evry day, and lord knows I'm 


good enough to teach it, but I'm not good enough to teach some one
something they're not interested to learn.

When I start telling people about the menu bar, listing it's properties,
showing some one how a menu bar works and what the various screen reader
messages actually mean, they say, "Erg! Fine, but gadamnit! Just tell me 
how to open and save will yah?"  I'm a hard-boiled spitting swearing
window-eyes user, and if I don't know exactly what jaws says when walking some jaws users through a series of steps, they panic. People in the main 


aren't intuitive.  Or they don't exercise their logic sirckets.

I've seen some terrible trainers in my time, and I've heard some
rediculous horror stories, but I have to say, what we as trainers would
see as the ideal is not what end users on average really want. That's the 


hell of teaching.
I'd like to teach people to use narrater if jaws crashes, but then we get 
into jaws and narrater verbalizing things differently.  Why does the
narrater voice sound so bad?  Why do I need jaws and narrater?  And of
course, Why does jaws crash so often, requiring me to bring up this slow
unweildy beast of a program that barely does the minimum? Those are tough 


questions for which there are no good answers.

Best,

Erik
At 07:08 PM 12/09/2007, you wrote:
It is an open source project and you are free to modify the code however 
it works for you.  One thing to keep in mind though, NVDA is not Jaws,
Window Eyes, Hal or System Access. It is free software with a very small 
number of programmers working on it in comparison to the big screen
readers.  My guess is,cosmetic features will eventually happen but the
main focus of the programmers right now seems to be porting the virtual
buffer code into C++ from Python. Also with any new screen reader, it may 


also require that the teachers learn a new method of teaching.  If the
teachers assume that all screen readers should be the same in order to
teach computers then they are not teaching their students the computer but
only the screen reader. My suggestion to those teachers would be to teach
the basics of computer usage and not just the basics of the screen reader 
usage.  I have seen so many people that have been trained on how to use
Jaws but have no idea how Windows works consistantly through many
programs.  A student who is taught how the computer works instead of
relying on a screen readers vocal feedback will have a much better
understanding of the computer itself and will eventually be able to use
the computer effectively no matter if he or she is using Jaws or even
Narrator. In fact if a computer trainer does not teach their student how 
to use Narrator then they are just wasting the students time.  If the
teacher is not teaching the student to control minimum basics without
speech then many times the student will not know what to do when the
screen reader quits working.  For example does a Jaws trainer teach the
student how to restart their machine when Jaws locks up and will not speak
anymore? Yep the teachers should really start to focus on how the machine 


works and not just the screen reader.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene" <gsasner@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 4:19 PM
Subject: [nvda] Re: ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v



JAWS only says close document window in programs where this is what
happens. Try using the command in Word.  It does indeed say close
document window. Now try it in Wordpad.  It doesn't say anything.
Indeed, try it elsewhere. If you are on the desktop, it doesn't say
anything.  In short, your objection is not accurate.

Gene
----- Original Message ----- From: "Arnaud" <postmaster@xxxxxxx>
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 1:56 PM
Subject: [nvda] Re: ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v



agree.

same with ctrl f4 , jfw for example say
close document Window
I have several appz where this key definitly perform other tasks.





--------------------
Arnaud de Bonald - Paris France - WeBlog http://www.echo-on.org
Skype Netcava


----- Original Message ---------------

Subject: [nvda] Re: ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v
  From: "Marvin Commerford" <mcommerford@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:28:36 -0500
    To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Great point, Mick. Stick to your guns on this one! Key labels can be 
a
nice feature but we as users need to learn what keys do in the programs 


we
use. An example is the ctrl-x key. Many programs use it as the cut to clipboard key. However, some programs use it for exit. So in programs 


that
do this the exit key would be announced as cut to clipboard.  That's
not
what's happening in such programs. The logic that says "just tell me 
something when any key is pressed" is false logic.  Hard coding key
labels
would be a bad practice in my opinion. The dictionary method is better 


but
that's also something to manage. I believe that in the long term your position on this is actually more respectful to blind users. The idea 
is
that we can figure these things out even if it is a little
uncomfortable at
first.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Curran" <mick@xxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 5:06 AM
Subject: [nvda] Re: ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v



Hi,
So far I have avoided these types of key commands in NVDA. The reason being that really you're just lying to the user when saying cut, copy paste etc, unless of course you really can detect if the application 
did
in fact really copy/cut/paste data to/from the clipboard.

My belief is also that blind and vision impared users must pay more
attention to the app they're using, and learn to trust the structure 
and
feel of a program, rather than depending on small messages from their 
screen reader.

However this is just my personal belief, I'm sure many people won't
agree
with me.

If someone can come up wth a fail-proof way of detecting if text is
copied
or cut o the clipboard etc, I'd think about adding it to NVDA, but as 
I
said, I don't really think its that necessary.

Mick

----- Original Message ----- From: "Simone Dal Maso"
<simone.dalmaso@xxxxxxxx>
To: <nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 7:56 PM
Subject: [nvda] ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v



Hi,
a little thing, don't know if useful.
Do you think could be useful that NVDA, when pressing ctrl+c, say
"copied",
ctrl+v "pasted" and so on?
just to be sure that text is copied or cutted.
bye!


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