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

Hi Rich,
Thanks for mentioning the shortcuts for traversing doc items on the Mac side, that are different depending on the orientation of the doc. Yet another feature that can easily require some notion of screen layout.

Usually in Windows, the direction stays the same regardless of physical layout. For example, take opening sub-menus. Sometimes if there's not enough space on the right, I've noticed the sub-menu may open at the left side of it's parent or originating menu. Yet the logical keyboard shortcut to open it is still the right arrow key. Also, I think the graphical arrow symbol always points right.

Speaking of screen reader demos in presentations, I've got good experiences, too. It was actually a course about scientific writing but I chose problems of current screen readers from a user point of view and had a 15 minute screen reader demo at the end with Supernova. The sighted people who were present found the example helpful especially the bits about inaccessible bitmapped text.

By the way, I've got enough sight to get some sparse layout info even without magnification. Yet I cannot easily read text under say 28 pt, so I use Supernova's magnification extensively. Also, apart from vague recognizable shapes, I don't benefit much from icons either and would rather turn them off to have a minimalist visual layout.

I also like the idea of being able to navigate freely in a certain direction using virtual focus, view finder or whatever the screne reader specific navigation mode is called. Though I do think that it might be very hard for a totally blind person as it relys on layout information that the screen reader doesn't ordinarily convey. Howabout conveying it with Torihara's speaker matrix?

http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2002/proceedings/100.htm

I find the idea fascinating and do have a real multi-channel sound card. An unconventional speaker setup in which up is really up rather than forwards might work well. Howabout using pseudo-surround sound with headphones as in some games, is that feasible?

Just my two cents.

With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/

Rich Caloggero wrote: 
This sounds interesting, but again there should be a way of disabling
such a "feature" when not wanted.

When looking at VoiceOver for the Mac recently, I ran into a situation
similar in spirit to this type of "directional navigation".  If the mac
start menu was placed along the bottom of the screen, left/right arrows
move you through its items; if its placed along the side of the screen
then up/down moves you through it.  However, not knowing this, I spent
about half hour trying to figure out why I couldn't access the items on
the menu the way I had the day before. It was only when I got sighted
help that I learned of this "feature"! I'd turn it off in a minute,
unless I were in a program (such as perhaps a layout program or something
where position really does matter).

Interesting to speculate here, but I suspect that if we survey all the
blind folks on this list, we'd find two camps: those of us who are
totally (or close to totally) blind and have never had (or remember
having) sight will not want (or feel overwhelmed by) such "features";
those who currently have some sight, or who remember having sight will
find this kind of thing helpful and useful.  Our senses do actually
modify our neuro connections, especially in a very young brain. So, if
one has sight up to about age 7, the brain has been shaped by it. Folks
who have lost their sight before this age, or who have never had it will
most likely have a very different set of connections, i.e. their brains
will be wired differently.

-- Rich 

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