Re: new highcontrast widgets?

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 6 Nov 2007, at 00:44, Peter Korn wrote:

> Hi Willie, Calum,
>
> We might want to bring in some Orca users.
>
> So long as ESC works to dismiss these dialogs, I don't see an  
> impediment to removing the CLOSE button.  I guess the issue is that  
> blind users wouldn't be able to tell when a dialog box is close- 
> able that way (if they can't navigate to an "X" in the window  
> manager in a closeable dialog that lacks a window menu with Alt-F4  
> close on it).  Again, I think we should get the input from some  
> users...

Well, Esc-to-close-windows issue is another whole can of worms that's  
been debated many time-- Esc (according to the HIG) is only ever  
supposed to be the shortcut for Cancel buttons, not Close buttons--  
this is in line with both the Windows and OSX guidelines (arguably,  
in the latter case, because they only specify that Esc should mean  
Cancel, and Cmd-W should mean Close-- they still don't make any  
comment either way on the use of Esc for Close AFAIK).

The usability and accessibility argument for this guideline is  
obviously that if Esc can mean both Cancel ("close the window and  
discard the changes") and Close ("close the window and keep my  
changes") in different situations-- completely opposite actions-- it  
increases the potential for user error.  Particularly so for visually  
impaired users, I would have thought.

However, the gtk maintainers disagreed with the HIG to the point of  
eventually changing the toolkit behaviour to have Esc bound to both  
Close and Cancel by default, despite the fact the only bugs that were  
ever (originally) filed by users were about Esc not closing the gEdit  
Find dialog-- which always suggested to me that it was the design of  
gEdit's Find dialog that was flawed.  Frankly, I'm still rather  
pissed off about all that...

All that said, I quite agree that it would be best by far to hear  
from the folks at the sharp end of the issues under consideration here.

Cheeri,
Calum.


> > > > A big stopper for this was apparently the highcontrast themes,  
> > > > where the
> > > > close button in the corner hit target is pretty small apparently.
> > >
> > > > Would something like this be doable?
> > > > http://andreasn.se/diverse/temp/hc.png
> >
> > I think it would depend upon the window manager.  I'm not sure  
> > what metacity provides for these.  Peter would probably know.
> >
> > > I'm pretty sure the main accessibility concern was feedback from  
> > > screenreader users, who preferred the safety of an explicit Close  
> > > button in the main part of instant apply windows-- i.e. one that  
> > > they could Tab to, and that a screenreader would announce.  IIRC,  
> > > there never used to be any way for screenreader users to tell if  
> > > there was a close button in the title bar or not, without  
> > > pressing Ctrl-W or Alt-F4 and listening to what happened, which  
> > > is obviously an unsatisfactory experience. I don't know off-hand  
> > > if this situation has improved with Orca.
> >
> > Orca certainly doesn't read the decorations of the window manager,  
> > and I'm not sure it can get access to them.  So, having something  
> > people can tab to would still be useful.
> >
> > But...before speaking in generalities, do you have specific  
> > dialogs we could take a look at?  I want to make sure I understand  
> > the problem better.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Will

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems