[vi-android] Re: A Review of BIG Launcher, the Android App with Seniors in Mind - AccessWorld? - November 2013

  • From: Quentin Christensen <Quentin.Christensen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'vi-android@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <vi-android@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:01:16 +1100

Interesting, it's always worked fine for me reading the icons etc - I just 
tried it then (Note II, Android 4.1.2, Talkback whatever the latest version is) 
- after the time etc, I can swipe right and it moves through the icons reading 
out "Call button", "Messages button" etc, or I can explore by touch, or use two 
finger left / right swipe to change pages and it all works for me.  What phone 
are you using?  Maybe we can pin down whether it is an issue with Talkback or 
Big Launcher or your phone or ... something else.  Certainly the dev has 
actually always been good at communicating when I've written with ideas or 
problems or anything.

Re what you can use faster - I would say:  Use what you are faster and more 
comfortable with - if that is speech, then go for it, if it's speech in some 
situations only, then that's fine too.  At the end of the day there is no right 
or wrong way to do any of this, and most of the solutions involve compromises 
so it's a matter of picking which options work best for you.

Indeed if you can articulate the options you've tried for any given task and 
how you decided what worked best, feel free to share it as that may help others 
in a similar situation!

Regards

Quentin.

From: vi-android-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vi-android-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Aaron
Sent: Wednesday, 20 November 2013 4:39 PM
To: vi-android@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vi-android] Re: A Review of BIG Launcher, the Android App with 
Seniors in Mind - AccessWorld? - November 2013

cool, awesome thanks. What are your thoughts on the subject of speech is better 
because you can use it faster than say looking for a number and you giving it 
to someone 3 digits at a time. As far as big launcher and talkback goes I could 
only navigate the time and date non of the icons or anything.
Thanks,
Aaron Linson
Producer of The Cast Podcast<http://www.blindpodcaster.com>

On Nov 19, 2013, at 11:12 PM, Quentin Christensen 
<quentin.christensen@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:quentin.christensen@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:


Hi Aaron,

It's certainly a tricky scenario, as while there are a lot of great apps around 
with nice large print, there are more which seem to expect that everyone can 
read 6pt font!
For myself day to day I actually don't usually need Talkback, I can actually 
read about 16 point, or even smaller for brief periods, particularly if I'm 
wearing my high magnification reading glasses.
When I do use Talkback - often when I'm reviewing apps - what I tend to do is 
turn Talkback on, then press the home key and try to keep Talkback in the 
recent apps so I can then bring up the list of recent apps, and select Talkback 
settings to get to it to turn it off.
I was using Big Launcher on my older phone (Galaxy Nexus).  I have switched to 
Lightning Launcher on the note II though I do miss the larger text from some 
areas of Big Launcher.

I actually started my blog to document my experiences with finding the best 
large print setup although because of the interest in Talkback I do make sure 
to try and test things with that as well.  My blog is at 
http://qchristensen.wordpress.com/
To answer the question, in general what I've done is get a phone with a large 
screen (Galaxy Note II though the note 3 and Galaxy Mega are out now and 
bigger), use a launcher with larger icons and look for apps with large print.  
For a lot of things I can get apps with large print (Lemo memo for notes, 
tweetdeck for twitter, aqua mail for mail, chrome for internet, Moon Reader for 
reading books, and various easy to see games).  It's not ideal - there are 
still a number of things which are small regardless.  Interestingly at the 
moment, while my Note II is still on Android 4.1.2, I can use font size setter 
to make the fonts on a lot of things larger, though I don't have the magnifier 
yet (it came in 4.2) - but when I get the 4.3 update (which the note II is due 
for by the end of the year now), I'll have the magnifier but won't be able to 
adjust the font size beyond the font size option in the accessibility settings 
(which in my opinion are minimal at best).
Regards

Quentin.

On 20 November 2013 13:37, Aaron 
<blindgeek1989@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:blindgeek1989@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Quentin,
With being a low vision user both of us are in the same boat as far as being 
between two worlds. How do you cope with using your vision to see things on 
your phone and also when you need to use talkback? Do you find it annoying to 
have to suspend talkback and then pull down the notification screen to pull it 
back up? How do you deal with reading small print on the screen  and just using 
your phone in general? I'm still trying to figure this out.
Thanks,
Aaron Linson
Producer of The Cast Podcast<http://www.blindpodcaster.com/>

On Nov 19, 2013, at 8:18 PM, Quentin Christensen 
<quentin.christensen@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:quentin.christensen@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:


Hi John,

Interesting, i just had a look and if you press the menu key and go to Nova 
Settings, "Desktop" is the first or second option, then "Home Screens" is the 
seventh option.  Then it gets tricky - this displays a grid of all your home 
screens, which you can explore or swipe through.  To delete one, you have to 
locate it, then double tap and hold, and it will vibrate to indicate it's 
moving, but then you have to drag it to the top middle of the screen where 
visually there is an X and if you drop it on the X, it will delete it - 
unfortunately that part doesn't read out or indicate in any way, so your 
options for deleting a page are either trial and error to find the right place 
to drop the page, or sighted help.
With icons which appear on multiple screens, there are two options - if they 
are in the very bottom row, they are likely in the 'dock' - a group of five 
icons which appear on every screen - any changes you make to the dock will 
appear the same on every home screen, so it's worthwhile setting this up with 
things you do actually use regularly.
If they are simply icons which are replicated on multiple pages then yes you 
can just delete the excess ones.

Regards

Quentin.

On 20 November 2013 02:38, John J. Jacques 
<kg7fa2@xxxxxxxx<mailto:kg7fa2@xxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi Quenton, thanks for that.  I will save your message and give it a try.
 One other question, do you know how to remove pages completely?  As I
mentioned, I have 8 pages and I don't think I need that many.  Hopefully,
I can remove the re-occuring apps, or are those apps on every page
regardless?

Have a good one:
John


John Jacques
Amateur Radio Station: KD8PC
"Where Cat Is,  Is Civilization!"

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