Chris, you make some good points, but self-voicing applications, no, that would realy be unnecessary. VoiceOver does a fine job of handling the text to speech function, I see no value in making applications self-voicing in most cases and nor is it typically a good investment for the return expected. Games, ok, that makes sense, but productivity applications, utilitites, and so forth, does not make a lot of sense. Developers just need to leverage what Apple provides as much as possible and then go from there. THe important thing is to determine the investment of resources and the anticipated return on that investment. You put in the features which are the most beneficial for the least cost. On Mar 8, 2009, at 8:37 PM, Chris Gilland wrote:
> I think it would be cool to use the default voice set via system > preferences and make it where the program can be self voiceing if > needed. Also provide an option to turn on, or off the self voicing > feature, this way if a user wants to use voice over, great, if not, > he or she still can do what needs to be done. Also, I would make > your labels for the U I, very discriptive but yet maybe slightly > shorter for the interface that is viewed via a braille display. > This way the point is made but only the absolutely necessary amount > of cells are used, this way providing more room for other things, > such as the value of the U I control. I may also advise you write > your programs in cocoe as I hear that language is very very voice > over friendly. Finally maybe provide an option for the program to > be able to enable magnification in the program for low vision > usersw. Also maybe provide an option to turn the programs U I color > to high contrast. > > This way it even helps low vision users as well as us like myself > who are nearly compltely total. > > Chris. > > > Do you use Twitter? If so, then, I'd love! for you to follow me. > My twitter URL is: > > http://twitter.com/chris28210 > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Martin Pilkington > To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2009 8:25 PM > Subject: Understanding Blind User's Needs > > Hi All, > > Let me introduce myself. My name is Martin Pilkington and I'm a > software developer on the Mac. I'm starting to do a big > accessibility push and I'm trying to get many developers to join me. > One of the key parts of this push is a pledge to make all my > applications 100% accessible by the end of 2009. I've defined 100% > accessible to mean 5 things: > > 1. The UI available to VoiceOver users should be as user friendly as > the visual UI. > 2. All UI elements should have titles and/or descriptions. > 3. All custom controls should provide full keyboard access. > 4. There should be a clear and logical order to navigating UI fields > with the keyboard. > 5. Every part of an application should be reachable without the mouse. > > Now I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who hasn't > got a disability, so I'm hoping everyone on this list could help me. > Are there any other major points you would say an application needs > to be 100% accessible to you? Are there any things you would like to > find in an application as a user with a visual impairment that > aren't part of the standard Mac accessibility tool? For example, an > option to get a full text description of the current window and how > to use it, at any point in the application > > Hopefully I can get a lot of other Mac developers to join me in my > pledge, some others have already come on board with the idea. But > getting the developers on board is just one piece of the puzzle. The > most important piece is understanding exactly what your current > problems and wishes are for accessibility in Mac apps so any > feedback you can give me is greatly appreciated. > > Thanks > > --------------------------------- > Martin Pilkington > Writer of Weird Symbols > pi...@mcubedsw.com > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
