Re: Audio Enriched Links

  • From: Peter Parente <parente@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 07:04:16 -0400

First, let me handle the installer question, then I'll tackle the 
question about the usefulness of the software.

The installer adds a couple of lines of code to the Internet Explorer 
JSS files for JAWS. The uninstaller should remove these lines of code 
when you decide to uninstall the program. I have tested the install and 
uninstall process on a number of machines with JAWS 4.51 and 5.0 without 
any problems. However, someone using Audio Enriched Links reported that 
he couldn't get the uninstaller to work. Even then, there should be no 
harm if the extra functions remain in the Internet Explorer script. The 
installer doesn't make any detrimental changes to existing functions. 
Even still, if you really want to get rid of what the installer added, 
you could either search for comment line with the term "pyAEL" in them 
in the internet explorer script and remove the code under them or run 
the JAWS repair process to return the scripts to their normal state.

As for the usefulness of the addon, I leave that up to the general 
public to decide. The idea is that Audio Enriched Links give a summary 
of what is to come if you follow a link before you decide to follow it. 
Typically, the only information you have about a link is the text of the 
link and whatever little else JAWS tells you. The problem is that many 
links aren't that descriptive, for instance, text links that say "Click 
Here" or image links that don't have proper ALT attributes. In those 
situations, you have to follow the link and browse around on the next 
page to see what's there and figure out if it was even worth viewing in 
the first place. But if you had a preview of the next page before you 
went there, you might be able to make a decision as to whether or not 
the next page is useful before you spend time browsing it and deciding 
that it wasn't worth visiting.

As an example, consider the Research link on the web page at 
http://www.cs.unc.edu. When JAWS encounters this link, all it says is 
"/Rollovers/indexup-01-02.gif" because the link is an image without a 
proper ALT tag. You wouldn't even know this was a link to the Research 
page of the site from what JAWS tells you. With Audio Enriched Links, 
you hear the following information about the link just by pressing a 
single keystroke combo:

Research (UNC-CH Computer Science)
Same domain
Mostly links
8 paragraphs, 27 links, 2 images, 0 forms, 2 tables
19 percent readable text
39 warnings, 0 errors
Some highlights: Major Research Project Areas, Faculty Research Areas 
Index, Research Laboratories, Research Support, Research Groups and 
Meetings, Intel Technology for Education 2000, Industrial Relations, 
Faculty Research Presentation Slides, (internally available only), 
Research Results and Products.

Now you know quite a bit more about the next page and can decide whether 
or not you want to visit it.

At any rate, it's up to you, the users, to decide if the software is 
worth it or not. It's definitely not perfect yet since it's an early 
version, but it is free to download so you might want to try it out. If 
you don't like it, then you can feel free not to use it or uninstall it. 
I'll welcome any feedback about how you like or don't like using it and 
what needs to be improved.

Pete


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