Hi, There are two things here. Firstly, you do not have to interact much of the time when people say you do, it's a case of learning the settings and the operating system just like in Windows. For instance, when I go into Mail, my VO is set to land me where the keyboard focus is so it lands me straight in the message list. Personally, I think more emphasis should be put on real world usage in these podcasts. Let me take David Woodbridge as an example. His podcasts are generally excellent and helpful, but he makes what I, personally, think are a couple of asumptions that just don't reflect the natural way to interact with a computer. Firstly, he assumes that you always start from a specific, known, position, and secondly, he only teaches VoiceOver. Unless it is absolutely unavoidable, he does not teach built in OS keystrokes and concepts. It would be comparable to teaching people using Jaws only to move word by word using the insert key method, and to do everything using the Jaws cursor rather than built in Windows keystrokes. David's methods are great for getting people doing specific tasks, but often not in the most efficient ways, and often not going deep enough or actually explaining enough. I tend to think that most Mac teachers make this mistake, I'm not picking on one person, just using the specific example as I know, use, and value David's work a lot.
The concept of interaction, in my mind, is generally helpful. The idea is that VoiceOver gives you an overview of what is on the screen and the ability to get around it quickly. For instance, whereas in any Windows screen reader, if you find a toolbar (Which you will only do if you know the right keyboard commands), there is no quick way of getting past it. With VoiceOver, each control, or element, appears as just that, an element. Some elements you will generally want to deal with, which is where interaction could become an issue, but many, you want the ability to skip over, so VoiceOver is built on the idea that if you want to use it, you will interact with it. There are a couple of things you can do to seriously limit how often you have to interact. Check that your VoiceOver is set for initial position to keyboard focus, not to first element. In most apps, you will then land exactly where you want to be. Secondly, and I think this is default behaviour, make sure the setting tab key interacts is set to on. This way, whenever you use the tab key to get to a control, you will automatically be interacting with it, and you won't have to uninteract to tab or shift-tab to the previous control. Another piece of faulty advice is to never use the tab key in Mac. Rather, you need to remember that the tab key will act a little like it does in Windows, in that it will take you to the next control the app dev thinks you might want to use it to get to, While it is always advisable to learn apps using the VO keys navigation method, you may well find that, when you know what you are doing, in many cases, you will use the tab key just as much. Finally, I don't see how anyone who learns to use Quick Nav can find interaction a problem. The ability to skip around and navigate without moving your fingers at all is invaluable, and interaction becomes such an easy process. Personally, unless I am in a file list or something, if I am going to use a few navigation commands in a row, I always switch to Quick Nav. The reason I don't in file lists? I don't want to interact, so I want to use the built in, OS X keystrokes, to do things, simply arrowing up and down lists, using command-down to open and command-up to close etc. As soon as I press command-2, I am right in that list view so don't need to navigate to it, and the same is true if I use one of the keystrokes to get to specific folders. In short, I am saying what they say for every operating system: learn both your screen reader and the operating system if you want to use it at all efficiently. Cheers Dave On 27 Feb 2014, at 09:45, Lee Jones <leejones...@sky.com> wrote: > Dear List I wondered if some kind soul could explain the concept of > interaction on the mac. On podcasts you get taught how to use it but not > what the underlying premise is behind it. What are the benefits of setting > up a screen reader this way. I find interaction an irritation. On windows > in outlook I'm immediately in the messages list I don't have to interact with > the list first. To me it just feels like interaction is always another > keystroke between me and where I want to get to. > > Many Thanks Lee > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
