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

Hi Pete,

An interesting point.  I think, that for some tasks, the semantic
information encoded in the physical appearance of a screen or document isn't
necessary to make it accessible, i.e. whether someone can interact with it,
but it can help in making it more usable, i.e. quicker to use, more
accurate, etc.

A web page, and most other forms of documents use spatial relationships
between text blocks to convey that multiple text blocks are members of the
same larger grouping.  This is one of the facilitators of visual skim
reading, where by someone can read the initial part of a text grouping, find
out it's not what they were wanting, and then jump to the next grouping
block.  The semantics of spatial alignment are used to indicate columns and
rows, which is how we identify information as belonging to the same column
or row, which can make searching, or skipping, of tabular data much more
efficient and easier.

There's also examples of the spatial relationships between GUI controls
being used to convey semantic information about the actions of those
controls.  For example, buttons placed next to a list box may indicate that
those buttons perform an action on the list box, maybe selecting it to
display different content, or that they perform an action on the selected
index of the listbox.  This insemantic information may not be encoded in the
label associated with a control.

Yes, all this semantic information can be encoded in text.  However,
increasing the size of a text buffer, given that text is serial in nature,
will increase the time taken to convey the semantic information to the user.
Ultimately, this will mean that, at least in terms of efficiency, blind
users are not as much in parity with sighted users as they may  have been.

I agree that for quite a few tasks spatial semantics aren't needed, as the
dev who designed the visual interface or input interface didn't take
advantage of encoding semantic meaning through spatial positioning and
relationships.  However, where it is used it helps to make a user more
accurate and more efficient, avoiding the often trial and error approach
taken when a user hasn't got the full semantics about the nature of a
control.

Will
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Parente" <parente@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 4:04 PM
Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?


> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm new here and interested in ways of making existing applications
> accessible in audio, both for users with and without vision. I noticed
> the thread about "what is a screen reader" and have to agree with both
> Jamal's and Darrell's thoughts. There are certainly times when a user
> needs to know exactly how information is being presented on the screen
> (e.g. designing GUIs, doing document layout) and other times when the
> visual representation is not important to the task (e.g. sending an
> email, reading a web page, managing files). Interestingly, most work on
> screen reading has been invested in the former area (i.e. trying to
> convey exactly what's on the screen) even though many of the common
> tasks users perform on computers today are not dependent on a visual
> interface.
>
> On a related note, people on this list might be interested in reading
> some information about my dissertation project, Clique
> (http://www.cs.unc.edu/~parente). It's an audio display system that
> concentrates on making the latter set of tasks, those that are not
> intimately tied to vision, accessible and usable in audio. It's been in
> development for only about 5 months now, so it's certainly rough around
> the edges.
>
> I just learned about OSAT, so please don't think of Clique as a
> competitive project, but rather a complimentary venture. I'd welcome any
> feedback you'd like to give.
>
> Regards,
> Pete
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