[ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?

Hi Pete,

Your task adjusting screen reader suggestion is interesting. It would
require some AI.

The problem is, as Microsoft found out, users in general do not like the
behavior of their applications to change. So if the screen reader provides
one set of feedback and allows the user to do a task in a certain way, this
is how the user is going to learn it and how he will expect to be able to
continue to do it. If the screen reader changes how this is done, the user
will get frustrated.
Microsoft's attempt at "smart menus" in Office, where items that are not
used often are hidden or moved to the bottom, thus always creating new menu
selections, is an example of an attempt you describe that has not been
popular with the majority of users.


**  Travis Roth
www.TravisRoth.com
travis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 

-----Original Message-----
From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Parente
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 11:55 PM
To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?


Hi Mary,

Yes. I see scripting as the "poor man's" way of injecting some 
intelligence into the screen reader. I think, with some work, it could 
be eliminated. The killer application, to me, would be a screen reader 
that starts off "dumb" just tells you everything that's on the screen. 
But, over time, it would learn what tasks you perform frequently, how 
you accomplish them, and then begin to automate some of the work for 
you. After some use, the screen reader would be more conversant about 
the things you do all the time but could still fall back on screen 
reading when new situations are encountered.

Clique won't be anywhere near that smart, at least not in the near 
future. But, to answer your question, it should support version changes 
better than other programs. Because Clique's scripts are written in 
terms of tasks, not visual components, they should be pretty stable 
across upgrades and, more interestingly, across applications of the same 
genre (e.g. two email clients might use the same or very similar scripts).

I've heard that same argument about telling the blind user about 
everything on the screen in order to ease interaction with sighted 
colleagues. I don't buy it. When two sighted users collaborate, I don't 
think they say things like "Open the file menu. Click the third item 
labeled Open. Wait for the window to appear. Click the text box below 
the file list. Type readme.txt." That's way too low level unless one or 
both are novice users. A piece of a more realistic dialog might resemble 
"Open the file readme.txt from the file menu." There's no need to know 
how the GUI is laid out in order to understand that statement as long 
how to open a file is clear.

Pete
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