Hi,
onlyonemac wrote:
Brendan wrote:
What I'm doing is focusing on the output side of things (and neglecting the input side), where the output is virtually identical (sans speech synth parameters).
For input; it's just events sent to the front end. For example, the front-end might receive an "UP" event, or a "NEXT_CHILD" event, or an "ESCAPE" event. The developer of the front end doesn't have any reason to care if these events are coming from a keyboard or speech recognition or anything else.
The output is not virtually identical. Imagine editing a document with an audio interface along the lines of Siri: I don't want to hear "OK, applying formatting" or "sure, here's a new paragraph" (whatever speed/intonation the voice uses) when editing a document, whereas the lonely truck driver on the road would appreciate a personal touch to the interface to keep him company.
Why not try to imagine using a wood saw to drill holes on brick, or using a freezer to cook bread, or anything else that is just as nonsensical as using a "request, reply" interface for something it was never intended for?
It's more fun to imagine a blind person using a keyboard and screen reader to find out today's weather while they are in the bathroom having a shower.
onlyonemac wrote:
But actually it's not so much about how similar the interfaces are, it's about what subset of those interfaces the majority of users are going to use and what subset of those interfaces blind users absolutely require, and the fact that developers will only implement the subset that the majority of users are going to use and leave blind users behind.
Why would a developer skip something that (sighted and blind) regular users need just because some (sighted and blind) casual users might not use it?
onlyonemac wrote:
Brendan wrote:
onlyonemac wrote:
I never said that blind people can't be casual users; what I said is that they don't want to be restricted to being casual users because the advanced features of an application are only available in the graphical interface. I also never said that sighted people can't be regular users of audio interfaces; what I said is that they aren't going to use an audio interface in the same situations that blind people are required to use audio interfaces, so aren't going to place the same demands on the interface that blind users will (e.g. a sighted user isn't going to care if they can't change the font size of their document with the audio interface because they'll do that later when they've got a monitor available, but a blind user who's trying to produce a professional-looking document certainly will care).
There's
relevant research into this phenomenon.
I don't see how that's relevant.
It's very relevant, because you're focusing on trivial nonsense like "What if a front end doesn't support feature X that for no sane reason sighted people never use but blind people use frequently while at the same time batman eats a donut made out of goat's cheese?". If something like changing font sizes isn't supported, any (sighted or blind) regular user will complain, just like users complain whenever any useful feature is missing from any application on any OS.
onlyonemac wrote:
I think you're refusing to accept that blind people WILL REFUSE to be given an inferior interface, and that developers won't bother to implement things that only blind users will benefit from (i.e. 75% of the audio interface).
No; I refuse to accept that blind people are bizarre freaks (and not just normal users that can't see) who need "special unspecified thingamabobs" that other regular users wouldn't want from an audio interface.
onlyonemac wrote:
Brendan wrote:
If you think blind people don't deserve anything good; then you could just implement a "generic audio front end on top of any visual front end" (a screen reader) yourself instead of using the audio front ends that were designed specifically for each application.
Or how about this idea for the "let's be mean to blind people" camp? Just leave all the work of making anything accessible to the application developer, then look surprised when the application developer doesn't make anything accessible?
I'm treating you exactly the same as I'd treat anyone who says silly nonsense. I'm not being mean to blind people, I'm trying to ensure they don't end up with user interfaces that suck. You are being mean to blind people by trying to ensure they do end up with user interfaces that suck.
I wouldn't be surprised if developers implement the audio interface first (because its easier - 3D graphics is much more complicated than outputting strings of phonetics), and then fork it afterwards so they've got something that works to build graphics on top of.
Cheers,
Brendan