Re: [orca-list] Use of non-speech sounds for navigation...



I have mixed views.

The examples you give I feel the sounds would be useless. May be this is because I don't have any keys spoken other than locking keys (eg. numlock and capslock). Adding sounds in this case only increases time. At this point I can't think of any time orca tells me to press keys so sounds instead of keys, useless as only an increase in time.

I can only think of two other cases of limited options where sounds could replace words. The one is to note controls, I think NVDA now does this on the web (eg. when you enter or leave a text box). The other may be to alert users to something about text (eg. subscript/superscript, bold/italic/underline, uppercase/lowercase, colour change, etc). Now this might improve the rate at which a user can use the system, but the user must learn what the sounds mean as there is no recognised standard and the sounds have no obvious meaning built in, and anyway I question if users would gain more speed by learning to listen to the speech faster.

Thinking back to the controls one, I think it is quite useful to have something to note the event of "entered edit box" or "exited edit box" on the web. I think at the moment orca doesn't really make this clear.

In short, it may be useful if done for the right reasons and done carefully in the right places. However miss that and it could be a waste of time.

Michael Whapples
On 01/-10/-28163 08:59 PM, Sasikumar (ààà/ààà) M wrote:
Hi,

This is based on something I read in a journal. The paper claims that using non-speech sounds for things like navigation makes screen readers more friendly for the visually impaired. I think one advantage is that these sounds (a screech for up arrow, a bell for the enter-key, etc) are shorter and easier to comprehend than the full word/phrase which will be used otherwise. Such sounds enable you to overlay them along with normal speech, without spoiling the message. Since my team at Mumbai is doing work on Orca, I wanted to know from you -- particularly the visually impaired on this list -- as to your thoughts on this idea.

We can then formulate a set of proper and well coordinated sounds for 5-10 navigational tasks, and implement them.

- Sasi



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