I like group mode, I just do not think that it is "done" yet. I think both VO web modes are lacking in a "SayAll" feature and, in group mode, I think there needs to be some "hints" as to which directions one can navigate - I have found myself stuck in corners where I cannot move in three of the four logical directions and then need to re- explore the page to find items that I would have heard had I made a right turn instead of going straight down.
I have a lot of what I think are good ideas for how to present "hints" and have written on the subject. I'd bet that other people who spend a lot of time thinking about UI for people with vision impairment also have good ideas but I've never been involved in any collaboration beyond friendly conversations with friends here and there.
Happy Hacking, cdh On Feb 2, 2009, at 10:26 AM, Travis Siegel wrote:
I have to disagree.Using group mode, I can whip through a web page a whoe lot faster than I ever could using jaws. I know a lot of folks here don't like group mode, and it beats me why, but it's not for me to judge, folks use what works for them, and apple is great with this approach, since there's always so many ways to do stuff. But, nothing beats group mode for fast, easy and complete control over your browsing experience. I have several web pages where using safari and group mode, I can get the information I want in a few seconds, but using those same pages under windows and jaws requires several minutes of painful back and forth, up and down, and sometimes just plain getting lost to find the infor I need. Now, admittedly, these kinds of pages are few and far between, as a whole, but even on moderatly packed pages (such as netflix) I find I can get where I'm going a whole lot faster using safari than i can on explorer or firefox. I.E. to find a watch now categories, and locate a movie takes 2-5 minutes on windows, because there's no quick way to bypass all the in between stuff on the pages, I have to arrow through *everything) on explorer and jaws. In safari, I simply use vo-right arrow, and poof, I'm on the next movie selection instantly. I'll run a trial session today, and count the keystrokes required to get to a particular movie (chosen at random) on explorer/jaws, then the same movie using safari/vo, and I'd be willing to bet it'll probably be something like 40-50 keystrokes on windows, and more like 10-15 on osx. but nonetheless, none of this helps you any. If you really are having trouble navigating quickly, I do suggest turning on group mode, and see the difference. Yes you have to interact more, and yes, you can't exactly determine *exactly* what's in each group unless you interact with it (such as links, pictures, and so forth) but honestly, I find the ease of navigation far outstrips any considerations of not knowing whether a particular item is a link picture, table, plain text, or what w/o interacting to get a better look at it first. For the most part, it really doesn't matter what those grouped items are if I don't need them, and if I do, it is only a single keystroke to put me into the proper group to check to see what they are. I really think a lot of folks short change the groups mode, because they're not comfortable with not knowing. *grin*On Feb 2, 2009, at 8:59 AM, E.J. Zufelt wrote:Good morning,That's to bad. I have to say that there are a lot of things about VO that I like, but web navigation is almost completely useless to me. It's slow, not very featurefull, and based on past experience is not very intuitive. I don't think that I'll ever find something that I like as well as JAWS for web navigation, but VO beats JAWS in other areas.That being said, I do love the VO + I command. Thanks, Everett On 2-Feb-09, at 10:51 AM, Jacob Schmude wrote:Hi EverettThere's no dedicated table navigation commands, as such. However, if you turn group mode on and thus render the page very close to its visual layout (this is how I keep mine set as I like this approach) then the vo+arrows will navigate tables as you'd expect them to, rather than in the linear fashion you get with dom mode.hth On Feb 2, 2009, at 09:45, E.J. Zufelt wrote:Good morning,Are there voiceover table navigation commands comparable to the Alt + Control + Arrow keys in JAWS and if so is there a way to get them to work on a web page in Webkit?Thanks, EverettThe major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.--Douglas Adams
