RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired Coders?

  • From: "DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" <jude.dashiell@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:29:19 -0400

The point is, it's a starting place and one that'll be understood by
anyone who got through High School Science.  As long as a data base has
a capacity for correction in future its life cycle can span centuries.
That's what keeps Chemistry alive.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 15:35
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

Not to be too picky, but seven primary colors is not really a concept
agreed upon by either designers nor physicists.

Putting that aside ... You keep focusing on the blind user, whereas the
goal of universal design is not to make products only usable
by one user group.

Navigating a color pallet or wheel with a mouse is 100 times faster than
doing so with a keyboard, at least in the forms we've
discussed; thus, I fail to see how this follows universal design
principles.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,
Jude T. CIV NAVAIR
1490, 1, 26
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 3:19 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?
Importance: Low

The seven primary colors of the spectrum is the reason for the first
seven levels on the tree.  If a tab moves one into only one set
of seven branches and a space bar has to be hit to select any of those
branches and move one level deeper it should be a pretty safe
tree to navigate.
For those of you who have iPhones, there's an app available called color
identifier with a bit over 16,000,000 colors in it and in
order to come pretty close to a similar number of possibilities 7 or 8
levels into a tree structure would probably have to be used.
A modified Fibonacci sequence formula in which c=a*b and d=b*c with
these numbers being totaled up as the tree spreads out got me
into Scientific notation by the 6th node using excel.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 14:50
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

This is an interesting idea. Here are my thoughts.

Unfortunately, tree structures are not visually optimized for a feature
in HCI known as discovery. Thus, discovery seems to be
discounted at little benefit to the user.

Also, tree structures only allow one-dimensional exploration, linear
path discovery, and are not horizontally optimized.

Furthermore, I'm interested in the choice of seven. What are your
thoughts here? I can think of a few pieces of research, the most
famous of which regarding short-term memory from bell labs discussing
the magic number 7 plus or minus 2, but in a tree structure,
you have reinforced visual memory, in that one doesn't have to keep
seven chunks in one's head, so why 7?

The downside to using a 7-ply tree structure, as you describe, is that
you've now forced a certain level of partitioning upon your
data. I don't believe colors partition well into seven categories. You
could use wavelength partitioning, which breaks down into
color, so you could have the reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues,
indigos, and violets ... That maps to seven categories, but most
folks associate the blues and greens together in a continuum, I would
say, and the indigos and violets are probably collapsed into
one branch as well, visually speaking, so it seems like one might be
asking for trouble by imposing a 7-ply tree structure on top of
a color pallet.

I just don't think a tree structure would work well at all visually
speaking because it hides commonality/similarity across related
items, which then can be easily visually grouped; thus, easily visually
chunked and skipped which optimizes both discovery and
selection time.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,
Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 1:42 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?
Importance: Low

Tree structures get used all the time to make selections like that.
Seven basic branches each lead to each of their own levels and those in
turn can lead to their own levels.


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 13:22
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

The problem with your approach is that you'd need around two 24-inch
monitors to display that new and improved color pallet. Do you
know how big those little squares of color are? Almost nothing ... Text
of equivalent size would be completely unreadable, as in sub
1 pt font. Thus, you'd have to make each one bigger. Now, you'd also
have to have variable length blocks, as well as variable
height, unless of course you want to standardize on the longest color
word.

Also, the usability benefit there is nonexistent. If you mouse-over the
color, you get the name of it in a tooltip. Similarly, at
least in windows 7 for example, color pallets tend to be arrowed through
with the keyboard, so that's a way for a screen reader user
to use it.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,
Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:55 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?
Importance: Low

What Microsoft did in Microsoft word and Microsoft excel when the color
picker menu opens up was to put blocks of color on the
screen, a sighted user moves up and down to the color they want and hits
enter and that color gets used.  What ought to have been
done was to write the word red for the color red and write the word red
with red letters and likewise for the other colors so that
blue would be written with blue letters.
Fortunately the bullets menu isn't that bad if you remember top is solid
and bottom is hollow, again though something a sighted
person had to tell me.
Let's not even get into what Microsoft did and didn't do with the user
interface pieces and standards for its software development
tools.  


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,
Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:35
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?
Importance: Low

I am certain these usability standards were used when writing Microsoft
Word, and Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel.  However in
the case of Microsoft Access, boxes with handles on them are in their
forms designer.  That in itself wouldn't be all that bad had
Microsoft made what those form handles do possible with using the
keyboard and menus.
That wasn't done.  In the case of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word,
colors do not announce themselves when a screen reader is used
to select them.  Bullet types in Microsoft Word don't announce
themselves either.
In the case of Microsoft excel, pivot tables at least were unuseable in
earlier versions of Excel, and it was me and a software
instructor that figured the way around that little difficulty and
informed Microsoft about it because Microsoft was either too
apathetic or lazy to put the information out before then.  It turns out
cross tabs in Microsoft access are identical to pivot tables
in Microsoft Excel with the exception that the cross tabs in Microsoft
access are entirely accessible.  Between me and you, I think
it's a miracle that Microsoft word was even made accessible at all.
What I've been told by sighted people who look at the screen is that
many of the graphics Microsoft puts on there look the same and
the only way sighted people can tell one from the other is by use of
context.  Probably no two controls should have identical
pictures on them unless their function is identical and within a
program, no two controls should show up with identical crc numbers
either.  Nothing should be possible with the use of a mouse that cannot
in any other way be done without a mouse and with either a
keyboard shortcut or by means of using menus.  Someone probably ought to
use lbc to put the Microsoft logo on a screen in a small
program and email it to Microsoft and give Microsoft a little background
information as to who did it with what visual impairment
and what tool they used and who's useability standards they used, that's
if it would do any good and I strongly expect it won't.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:12
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

Please provide examples then.

How would you like to see them improved?

Are you familiar with the myriad of problems they are trying to solve
and have a better holistic solution, or are you simply
frustrated?
 
Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DaShiell,
Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 12:05 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?
Importance: Low

Sounds like those Microsoft usability standards could do with a rewrite
or two.


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:47
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?

Jim,

These allow you to layout  a GUI, but not one that really meets any kind
of visual aesthetic. I know Jamal says he consulted the
Microsoft usability guidelines, if I'm not mistaken, for LBC; however,
there again, it's the difference between making a usable
visual UI and a mathematically derived one that looks completely
different than anything else on the computer.

 This is an extremely hard problem to solve because of the levels of
design that really go into good functional user interfaces, in
the visual domain. Layout managers, like the ones found in java, are
quite fantastic, but it really takes someone with a good
understanding of HCI and user factors engineering and so on, before you
get a user interface that is easily usable by the sighted
public.

Take care,
Sina

________________________________

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:38 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired
Coders?



Hi Guys,

In all honesty, I feel that you have a fighting chance. 

 

In the Windows, Microsoft world, there is Jamal's stuff. I don't know
enough about how it all works to recommend the exact set up
that might be best, but I'm sure Jamal would chime in here. Look at the
packages called lbc, IniForm, HomerJacs, and LBC.Net.

In the other stuff area, you have these. I would think that in the Java
world, you would have Swing, with various kinds of layout
mechanisms, and SWT, with all of its power. With languages like Python,
C++, and Perl, you'd have the WX stuff at your disposal. 

 

I say don't give up, and report back how you are doing so that we can
help you through it. Don't worry, I'll be doing what I'm
talking about before long.

 

Jim

Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme

Internal recipients,  Read my accessibility blog
<http://mysites.highmark.com/personal/lidikki/Blog/default.aspx> .
Discuss
accessibility here
<http://collaborate.highmark.com/COP/technical/accessibility/default.asp
x> . Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news
and accessibility advice
<http://collaborate.highmark.com/COP/technical/accessibility/Accessibili
ty%20Wiki/Forms/AllPages.aspx> 

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels
Roos
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:08 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Is GUI Programming Worth While for Visually Impaired Coders?

 

This message was posted to a reply on the long thread about Oracle
accessibility concerns involving Java. I thought I'd post it
again with a new subject, since it deviates from the original topic.


 I can't agree more your this statement Jay. As much as all of us want
to create nice GUIs, it is really such such a battel for
someone that can't see properly, if you are honest with yourself. I
would say that the FB examples are indicative of this, since the
FB concept is very simple yet for a visually impaired person to build a
GUI  is a massive task in all fairness. 

I didn't  catch the whole story with the recent critisism of the FB
examples, but I can understand why a professor for example would
ridicule having the logic and presentation code (GUI code) all in one
file. (or any other aspect of the FB stuff that servce the
purpose of aiding blind people) It's a poor design choice for anything
but an example, but then, that's exactly what the FB examples
are -- tools to show you simple GUI creation in various programming
languages. Personally I think it's great and I commend all the
contributors. It's a service to the community, but sighted people will
struggle to see it's worth. 

We must understand, for a fully sighted person, building GUIs is
rediculously easy and straight forward. No matter what kind of
accessible GUI designer tools there might be in future, the playing
field will never be level when it comes to anything graphic. Yet
there is no reason for despair, since there are numerous other areas in
computer sciense and programming in particular where a blind
person could compete well and I'm speculating that there might even be
areas where having no or little sight might aid you! 

One particular small project I worked on while studying at university
springs to mind. It was a little applet developed with AWT or
Swing that saved your bookmarks in a tree structure. The professor was a
gracious man, and he gave us a nice score for the project,
but he stepped in after we did our presentation and basically told the
class that we really did spend much time on this and that we
didn't just download it from the net or something... He did this, I
think, because our project was fairly inferiour graphic wise
compaired to the elaborate graphics the other student's projects sported
even though I spent hours and hours on the little GUI side
of the software. 

It's heart breaking for me when I read how hard blind folks try and make
appealing graphical interfaces, or when I read about the
struggles some software causes blind guys. It's commendable to see how
people cope with the worst of situations, but there are also
better areas to focus on,, areas where you'll be far more productive and
make a better impact . 

It's a complex topic for me and there are much to say about it. What I'm
wondering is if it is not a good time to review the way
disabled people are trained up to believe that interaction with
computers should commence in the generally accepted form of having a
"normal" or sighted OS with all highly graphical applications with a
rediculously advanced and complex and expensive screen reader
stuck on top of it all. 

And then, on the other hand, how we can identify better software
development areas to focus on where blindness poses less of an
obsticle. Also, how we can advance in those areas and properly promote
ourselves and our value to a software development shop
developing for the general public or business where accessibility is of
little concern. Myself for one have a little bit of a
complex when think of all my years experience as a software developer
and yet the difficulty with which I'm faced with when having
to develop a GUI, and how someone with far less experience than myself
could code a GUI so much faster and better looking in less
time and with less effort. 

My challenge to the list; let's draw up a specification of areas in
programming and computer science where visually impaired people
can excell at in the modern age where graphics does play such a ever
increasingly important part. 

Armed with such a specification we'll be in the right position to start
and focus efforts on training ourselves up in those areas
and then sharing knowledge and awareness so that a wel trained blind
programmer (in the identified fields) could approach any
development house with confidence of his / her abilities and value she /
he will add to a company. 

Kerneels 

On 10/13/2010 12:31 AM, Jay Macarty wrote: 



I would advise spending time on web development with java on the server
side. Either that or headless java development such as web
services. Both directions can allow a person to grow into a very strong
java developer with very marketable skill sets without
fighting the constant battle of either swing accessibility or trying to
gain skills in an API, swt, which may have somewhat limited
acceptence in a large traditional java shop. Personally, I love swt;
however, as a tech lead, I can't push it into a project here
because it is not an accepted technology by our enterprise architects. 

----- Original Message ----- From: "Homme, James"
<james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx> <mailto:james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 7:02 AM
Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 


Hi Jay,
Would you advise someone new to Java to spend more time on Swing, SWT,
or web? 

Thanks. 

Jim 

Jim Homme,
Usability Services,
Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme
Internal recipients,  Read my accessibility blog. Discuss accessibility
here. Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility
advice 


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jay Macarty
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 3:31 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 

Over the past couple of years, I have been involved in hiring java
developers several times. One of the things we have had trouble
with is finding people with swing experience. It seems that, while there
are certainly a number of applications still using swing
heavily, a lot of java development is moving away from swing based GUI
interfaces to using web based front-ends. Perhaps, Oracle
thinks that a declining interest in using swing as a UI means they don't
need to spend as much effort on swing accessibility but
that thought path can certainly leave those of us who still need access
to heavily swing based apps in a spot. 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanzel, Susan - Kansas City, MO" <susan.stanzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:susan.stanzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 8:11 PM
Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 


Hi Listers, 

I have not stepped into this until now. I would hope that needing
government contracts in the United States would have some affect
on all this. I have asked people about swing and I am told it isn't used
very much because there is newer technology out there. I am
not an experienced Java programmer so maybe the rest of you will know
more than I do. I know we use Struts at my building for
creation of web projects. If I have just made a fool of myself, it's not
the first time and won't be the last. (grin). 

Susie Stanzel 

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of The Elf
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 7:08 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 

hey, this is my usual line, "beat them into submission" lol 

or hound,or pummel,  or... 

elf
Moderator, Blind Access Help
Owner: Alacorn Computer Enterprises
Specialists in customized computers and peripherals
- own the might and majesty of a Alacorn! 
www.alacorncomputer.com
proprietor, The Grab Bag,
for blind computer users and programmers
http://grabbag.alacorncomputer.com 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 10:14 AM
Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 





Wow, it only took like 15 emails on the subject, but finally the voice
of reason has made itself known. 

Ken, I completely agree. Now is the time to pressure them into actually
not abandoning it. 

Take care,
Sina 

________________________________ 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 1:10 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 



If this is true then it's not time to tell people to stay away.  It's
time to get people to get active and start emailing and
calling them till they do support it.  If we stay away we lose what
accessibility was there. 



Ken 





From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Storm Dragon

Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 11:09 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Credible rumor that deserves serious consideration, IMHO 



Hi,
I would not doubt it for one second. They dropped the ball on Linux
accessibility pretty much first thing when they took over Sun. 
It's probably a good idea, if you have influence over software
decisions, to encourage companies, clients, and friends to stay far
far away from Oracle and their software. I was even going to get rid of
Open Office but fortunately the version used in Ubuntu is a
fork so not subject to them. unless, that is, they somehow manage to win

their evil attack on Google. If that happens, who knows who they will
attack next. Keep your fingers crossed, and maybe the open
source community will keep the Bridge going, Orca is still alive and
well after all. 
Storm 

-- 


Registered Linux user number 508465: 
http://counter.li.org/
My blog, Thoughts of a Dragon: 
http://www.stormdragon.us/
Get yourself a Frostbox: 
http://www.frostbitesystems.com/ 


On Sat, 2010-10-09 at 08:15 +0530, prateek aggarwal wrote: 


oh know,
i wish its just a rumor. 
if its ever going to be true, i'll be so said. 

regards,
prateek agarwal. 



On 10/9/10, Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:empower@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote: 



I heard from a good source today that Oracle has decided to discontinue
support for the Java Access Bridge (and no alternative is
planned).  I would be glad to be convinced otherwise.  If anyone has
information regarding this topic, please share. 

Jamal 

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--
Kerneels Roos
Cell: +27 (0)82 309 1998
Skype: cornelis.roos 

"Common Sense" is not "Common Practice" . 

"The Strawberry Jam Law: 
  The wider you spread it, the thinner it gets..." 
   -- from the Java Specialist Newsletter, from a book on consulting. 


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