Ok well basically here is how screen readers work. Windows uses an underlying code base called MSAA that is able to take instructions given from the kernel of the OS itself and reinterpret it, Screen readers can then take that reinterpreted information and send it to the user through speech, braille or what have you. However if the programs being used do not have controls that are native to Windows and MSAA interpretation then the screen reader has to be further customized in order to be able to present the information to the user. That is what scripts do. They are a set of instructions that Jaws is given to make Jaws able to present the information in a comprehensive way to the user. In a sense Jaws scripting is a programming language used to either reprogram or change the basic funtionality of the screen reader. In the case of Jaws, Jaws uses 3 separate cursors to present the information to the user. There is what is called the PC Cursor which is the windows system focus. The Jaws cursor which is essentially the mouse pointer and the invisible cursor that is a cursor that is a subset of the Jaws cursor that doesn't have an actual visible cursor. In english what the invisible cursor is, is a cursor that can gather information from the computers video display driver, the Jaws cursor, PC Cursor and read the information to the user. The invisible cursor in a sense also has the free movement that the mouse pointer or Jaws cursor has, however it can't be used to perform any actions such as clicking on or activating a control. Instead it is used as a pointing device independant of the mouse pointer to read information. Jaws scripting is essentially a set of instructions that can manipulate the position and also the information presented by these cursors in order to give the funtionality of the programs to the user that Jaws does not natively understand. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andreas Stefik" <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 2:52 PM Subject: Re: Sonified Debugger vs. Screenreader Question
John said:and natively spoken language is always going to be the most efficient means of communication.Andreas said: Not true, although the question really has nothing to do with the questions I've asked in this thread, which were related to scripting. Besides, we use a speech based interface in our tool. Rouben and Terveen, for example, found in their 2007 empirical study that sonification was actually more effective than speech based audio for certain types of tasks (Navigation). Speech effectiveness is highly variable and depends upon the context under which it is used, the word choice, proficiency with the language, prosodic cues (Think Robert Stevens work), not to mention cognitive issues in the brain (Williams disease affects spatial cues, for example, which limit your word choices for that group - Think baddeley's work), and of course, whether speech is happening in parallel. Even listening to a news broadcast while using speech cues, as they showed in an empirical study in Madrid this summer, can lower the comprehension of speech cues. Comprehension of speech is extremely complex, and whole books, like Paul Whitney's 1998 book "pscyhology of language," have been written on the topic. Here's the Rouben reference: Rouben, A., & Terveen, L. (2007). Speech and non-speech audio: Navigational information and cognitive load. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Auditory Display. and the madrid reference: Tsujimura, S., & Yamada, Y. (2007). A study on the degree of disturbance by meaningful and meaningless noise under the brain task. In 19th International Congress on Acoustics. The stevens reference: Stevens, R. (1996). Principles for the Design of Auditory Interfaces to Present Complex Information to Blind People. Ph.D. thesis, The University of York.Not sure why I deserved the negativity for asking straightforward questions.Andreas __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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