Re: [orca-list] What Orca will do was Re: What's standard? was: Re: date and time keybindings

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Lots of good stuff, probably worth the longer message. One thing I also 
think should be considered as well is: What will the impact be on 
current users? IE. Does it mean altering current behaviour/keybindings 
in orca?

Michael Whapples
On 05/03/2010 05:35 PM, Joanmarie Diggs wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> Please accept my apologies in advance for the lengthy email. But I'm
> feeling the need to draw a couple of threads/themes to a close.
>
> On Mon, 2010-05-03 at 16:39 +0530, hackingKK wrote:
>    
> > Sorry, I did not mean standards as in "ISO" or some other standard.
> > ment some concept for example when you press ctrl + b in openoffice orca
> > responds "Bold on " this also happens in other free and proprietory
> > screen readers.
> >      
> I think this is another example of doing the thing that makes sense. It
> turns out that other screen reader developers also recognize that this
> makes sense, so they do it too. :-)
>
> In other words, given a user who has just toggled bold on in your screen
> reader, what should you speak in response? (As hard as it is, pretend
> that no other screen reader has implemented such a feature yet.) Your
> goals are:
>
> * Communicate accurate information
> * Do so in an efficient matter (i.e. as few words as possible)
>
> What's relevant here? the format (bold) and its new state (on). Ergo,
> "bold on." To me it is a natural (and one could argue, the only) choice.
>
> With this in mind, let's now to proceed to the following question, which
> we've been discussing largely to no avail on this list, namely: Given a
> user who wants to know the time (again, imagining that no other screen
> reader has implemented such a feature yet), what is the logical choice?
> Your goals for this command -- and all commands -- are:
>
> * easy to discover and to remember
> * easy to perform (i.e. physically)
>
> When you want a heading you go with h, when you want a heading at level
> 2 you go with 2, when you want a list you go with l, when you want a
> list item you go with i, when you want an entry you go with e, when you
> want a radio button you go with r, ... I'm a user who wants to know the
> time. I think I'll guess.... Oh I dunno.... F12. Yeah, right. Anyone who
> said F12 (keeping in mind the rule here: Pretend no other screen reader
> has implemented such a feature yet), deserves to be voted off the
> island.<smile>
>
> Mind you, I sympathize with those of you who are JAWS users and/or who
> work with JAWS users and who find JAWS commands more familiar. And I
> encourage you to rebind any Orca commands you'd like to whatever you'd
> like -- on your local system(s) -- to make Orca easier for you
> personally. HOWEVER: For the umpteenth -- and hopefully the last --
> time:
>
> * Orca is not JAWS. Orca will never be a JAWS clone. There will always
>    be differences between Orca and JAWS. I'm sorry.
>
> * The goal of Orca is to provide compelling access to the GNOME desktop
>    for GNOME users. Regardless of where the users have come from, be it
>    from OS X or from Windows or from a console environment, or from KDE.
>    Regardless of if they have experience with VoiceOver or JAWS or NVDA
>    or Window-Eyes or Hal or have never used a screen reader before but
>    are starting to because of a change in vision, or because they are
>    children learning how to use a computer for the first time.
>
> * Maintaining compatibility modes, layouts, whathaveyou for additional
>    screen readers to try to make things "more familiar" in Orca will
>    suck up time and energy that Orca developers do not have because this
>    is not something you set once and forget about. There will always be
>    a danger of a change in Orca's native behavior breaking some
>    compatibility mode.
>
> * We don't have things in Orca like a virtual viewer and a virtual
>    buffer and an off-screen model and video intercepts, etc. But we
>    do have flat review mode (which JAWS doesn't have; perhaps they need
>    to clone us), and we present web content as it appears on the screen
>    so that you can see the same thing that your sighted peers do
>    (perhaps JAWS should do that instead of totally recreating and re-
>    rendering what's on the screen into a format that is very different
>    from what your sighted peers see). As a result of these differences,
>    even if we could reasonably maintain a compatibility mode, there will
>    always be differences significant enough to cause compatibility mode
>    users to get confused and frustrated when Orca doesn't behave like
>    JAWS (or whatever screen reader their mode is attempting to emulate).
>
> Because of these things, all proposed new keybindings will have to pass
> the following test:
>
> "Imagining that no other screen reader has this command, what keybinding
> would make the most sense because it is discoverable, memorable, and
> physically easy to execute?" Alternatively, a candidate keybinding which
> has overwhelming community support will almost certainly be fine by me.
> <smile>  Proposed keybindings which fail the "makes sense" test and which
> lack overwhelming support will not be accepted.
>
> Which brings us back to Orca+F12 for the time/date.
>
> * Is it discoverable and memorable, keeping in mind we're imagining that
>    no other screen reader has such a feature? No it is not. FAIL.
>
> * Is it physically easy to execute? Not for Desktop layout users
>    because it will require anyone without super long fingers to move
>    their left hand over to the right side of the keyboard. FAIL.
>
> * Does it nonetheless have overwhelming community support? Based on all
>    the discussion I've seen this past week, it is clear that it does not.
>    FAIL.
>
> As a result of these failures, Orca+F12 will *not* be the
> default/shipping/upstream binding for causing the time to be presented.
> Those who just can't live without it being Orca+F12, please let us know
> if you need help learning how to rebind commands on your local system.
>
> Orca+T seems to lack overwhelming community support (largely due to JAWS
> compatibility mode advocates). But Orca+T to speak the Time is
> discoverable and memorable. It's definitely physically easy on the
> Desktop layout. It's a tad less natural-feeling on the laptop, but I can
> very easily use my left had to press CAPS_LOCK+T. So I'd say it's fine
> ergonomically. Therefore, I would be happy to accept Orca+T as the time
> keybinding -- assuming the community feels that the time command should
> be bound to something by default.
>
> --joanie
>
>
>