Hello "VoiceOver On" guys and everyone else on the list, First of all, I'll start by saying that I am not a Mac fan or anything-one else's, for that matter. I am only a fan of myself, <just kidding>. I just wanted to share a couple of my thoughts regarding the latest "VoiceOver On" podcast because, unfortunately, Twitter's 140-character limit is way too limiting for my taste and for the purpose of this message. :)
1. I think you are correct in saying that many people forget to ask themselves what they want to do with the computer. This often leads to uninformed decisions and, subsequently, unjustified or unnecessary purchases. We all in some ways affected by our friends's opinions, buzz words and commercials. Regardless, we need to learn to ask those questions so we do not regret our technology choices that will only slow us down and make less productive. After all, a computer with an operating system on it are just tools to help us live our lives like everyone else does . 2. Is VoiceOver a bad screen reader? Not at all, IMHO. Is it the best? Of course, not. At times VO feels like a work-around altogether, while at other time sit feels like the most innovative screen reader on the market. It really has both. Pros: - VoiceOver has a pretty good built-in help which most users probably never read. - VO is a pretty flexible screen reader, especially on Lion, EG through the "Activities" feature. - Good support for Mail, chat, Calendar, basic text editing with TextEdit, Webkit-based browsers (Chrome, Safari, Lightning, iCab etc). - A consistent support for applications that are designed wit accessibility in mind, EG "YoruFukurou Twitter client" and many others. Cons: - Too complicated system of shortcuts. However, Quicknav and Trackpad navigation eliminates the need for many of of those shortcuts. - Does not provide efficient environment with production applications like Pages, Keynote and Numbers. - Apple doesn't do a good job of promoting VoiceOver and/or interface with the the end-user. If I had to pick one of the most innovative features of VoiceOver that will have a profound impact on how blind people interact with technology in the near future, it would be the "Trackpad Commander". I understand this particular tool may not appeal to the generation of users who are fairly firm in their computing habits but those young and adventurous should be taught to give up their keyboards, especially for exploration purposes. 3. So, what's the problem and why VoiceOver doesn't let me be productive? This is where I feel the podcast participants lead us down the wrong path of thinking. Instead of blaming everything on VoiceOver, we should instead concentrate our efforts on applications themselves. A good example would be the following: Pages and Keynote are not accessible because of VoiceOver but primarily because their developers, yes, Apple, did not expose the right accessibility interface to VoiceOver. If you removed all the JAWS scripts from the JAWS application directory, you would, to your surprise, quickly find out that most of the Windows applications you thought were accessible actually are not. I know that NVDA developers expressed a similar concern on several occasions, namely, that blind users tend to blame their screen reader first before they blame the application itself. And you know what? I completely understand why users do this. A regular user does not have any insights into what makes their computing experience accessible. Since they interface with the computer via a screen reader, if something goes wrong, the screen reader is to blame. So, we simply need more education. And this is where I wish the podcast authors could spend more time and energy. In summary, it is correct to say that newcomers to technology should first familiarize themselves wit choices available on the market and decide which ones are the most suitable to their needs. It is , however, totally wrong to blame everything on VoiceOver and blame the lack of productivity tools on the screen reader at hand. Just FYI, here is what I use my Mac for and the kinds of apps that serve me well. - YoruFukurou client for Twitter. - Textedit for wordprocessing. - Chrome and Safari for web browsing. - Mail and iCal for my corporate needs. - Garage Band, VLC and iTunes for music. - XCode and Dashcode for programming. - Cyberduck for FTP uploads and downloads. - Terminal for all the Unix-related stuff (geeky). - VMWare 4 with Windows 7 if I ever need to jump into Windows for testing or otherwise. How is this not a productive environment? Well, for me it is. Thanks, Vic -- 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.
