Things that change the gui representation w/o affecting actual text displays could indicate this with a [icon] or [gui] flag of some sort. This way, folks would know, that what they're changing is supposed to change a gui display, and not necessarily what vo is reading. The confusing thing in this case is that there's no indication that what is being changed is what's shown in the icon. To a vo user who doesn't have sighted assistance, or doesn't think to ask about it, the functionality as it is now appears wrong, because as explained before, when selecting percent, vo reads time remaining, while selecting time remaining makes vo read percent remaining. While it has been explained that the icon changes as indicated by selecting this option, what is not made clear to the vo user w/o sighted assistance is the fact that at the same time the icon changes, the menu also changes to reflect the opposite setting of the icon. Personally, I'd make the icon match the menu item, since that would eliminate this misunderstanding entirely. However, I understand the reasoning behind this, (even if I don't agree with it) and it's more or less a visual decision thing. However, again, this is not obvious to a vo user, and so as an assist to the vo user, the option needs to be marked with something which indicates it's for the gui element, and not the actual menu option. Applying a tag of [icon] or [gui] after the toggle description would indicate this and alert the vo user to the fact that what is being set is an option to modify the gui behavior, and not necessarily the behavior vo is reading by default.
I see places where this coul be used for other things as well.For example, when applying themes or backgrounds. These items do nothing whatsoever for vo users, but it's nice to be able to set up your screen to be appealing to sighted folks according to our preferences as well, and so a [gui] tag on those items could indicate to vo users that what is being set or changed is really being applied to the graphical interface, not to vo, and therefore may or may not alter vo's reading behavior. Admittedly, in most cases, it's fairly obvious whether an item is gui related or a general configuration, but as with the battery status, there are times and places where being told in advance that this particular option is going to change the gui behavior may eliminate a whole slew of bug reports, general complaints, and more illwill towards mac os as relates to interface management, which as we all know is something vo can illafford.
On Jul 9, 2008, at 6:20 AM, Cara Quinn wrote:
Travis, that's fine, and I actually agree with you on that, as it would be good to know what's actually happening. Might I suggest more of a feature request approach though, rather than a bug report, since VO is acting normally here, and so is the OS?Basically what you're' after, is some additional notification for VO users; yes?…I'm wondering, what form do you think this should take?… I really am curious here, as I really hadn't thought of this as being a huge issue.Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
