From: person@plains.nodak.edu (Brett Person)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Screen Reader
Date: 19 Aug 92 04:35:11 GMT
Reply-To: person@plains.nodak.edu (Brett Person)
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network
X-Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 23962

In article <23729@handicap.news| William.Wilson@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org writes:
|Index Number: 23729
|
| GP|    I'll ask you a third time.  Please state the specific
| GP|    deficiencies you think exist in IBM's Screen Reader.  What
| GP|  do other packages provide that Screen Reader doesn'
|
|Greg,
|    I don't particularly want to get involved in this discussion, but..
|
|    I think David's saying that Screen Reader is dependant upon a
|knowledge of PAL to make it work well is fairly specific.  Likewise,
|your claim that it doesn't is just as specific, no more and mo less.
|
|     Now then, 99% of us out here, who have never seen Screen Reader, are
|being left in the position of having to decide which of you is telling
|us the truth, assuming that both of you have the same opinion as to what
|is user friendly in the way of speech and what is not!

They are both right to an extent.
Screen Reader doesn't necessarilly *require* you to know PAL<. Knowing
PAL  does help a great deal.
At this point, we have a quandary.  PAL will make screen reader more
usable with a speciffic package. However, to really use PAL
effectively, you have to know how to use screen reader effectively.

All the tools to mong a profile together are there. SAA-tools goes a
long way to helping create a profile for an environment. Likewise,
some of the basic built-ins to screen reader help.  Screen reader's
ability to find a string of text on screen combined with screen
reader's ability to move either the cursor or the pointer to that
location helps a great deal. Now, add to this the fact that screen
reader will actually tell you where the cursor and pointer are on the
screen at any given time , and you have the basis for writting your
own profiles.

To effectively use screen reader requires some basic simple thought
about what your applicatton is doing.  Even if you are totally blind
you must have a concept of that.  Otherwise, why are you using that
app?
Most word processors look and act like word processors. Most
spreadsheets have cells and formulas and menu-bars either at the top
of the screen or on the side in a pull down ( quattro)

I think that, as with a lot of software products, most people who use
screen reader have little idea of just what it can really do.  I
don't think that this is because they can't master PAL or can't handle
the keypad.  I think it's because they are busy with their jobs, and
probabnly have to worry more about getting that document written up,
or getting the numbers out of the database or spreadsheet.  They
probably care as much about the way screen reader works as I do about
the way the edit loop is working inside emacs as I type this.

Greg previously mentioned the internet site that archives profiles.
I think he was talking about mine. It's at IBM-SRD@vm1, and I'll send
out instructions in a followup message in case any of you want to get
stuff from it.  It should be current through the Spring news letter.

Any of you are free to send me questions about PAL programming. I'll
do what I can to help.  I'll also be finishing up the tutorial ( I
hope) in the next couple of weeks.  That will also be available
through the archive site and probably even from IBM although I haven't
discussed it with any of the people I know at IBM.

Screen Reader is easily the most powerfull screen access system on he
market. But to use it, you must understand it, know you software, nad
not be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

I hope this helps to clear some things up.

-Brett
--
Brett Person
Guest Account	
North Dakota State University
person@plains.nodak.edu || person@plains.bitnet