Re: [orca-list] [Fwd: Default button of Orca]

[Alan Bell <alanbell ubuntu com>]

On 21/04/11 11:36, Michael Whapples wrote:
> Hello Alan,
> I have already stated my opposition to this proposal already so will 
> not go over those again. However I do have a few more comments based 
> on what you have now said.
I continue to be astonished at the level of discussion my little 
proposal has prompted!
> My main argument is that simply making the help button default will 
> not really serve the purpose of what you want and it may be better met 
> by an alternative solution. The main issue comes from this idea that 
> we are making an assumption that someone may not have sufficient 
> knowledge of keyboard navigation to move between buttons, yet would 
> know sufficient to use yelp from the keyboard. I don't believe such a 
> situation could really occur (IE. if the user doesn't know navigation 
> of buttons then they won't know yelp navigation, if they know yelp 
> navigation then they probably can navigate buttons).
yes, my secondary point was that the help you get doesn't start by 
giving you the skills to navigate the rest of the help
> One solution might be to have an interactive tutorial but that 
> probably would require a bit of work.
I will start such a project, I was going to try and write some articles 
for developers on how to make their applications more navigable and what 
silly things not to do and this will be a great basis for teaching me 
what I need to know to write those articles.
> Another, probably simpler solution, would be to add a text box to the 
> main window containing some basic instructions on navigation and 
> screen review with orca. As this text box would be in orca, there 
> should be no issue with orca always setting the caret navigation of 
> the text box to on (I know some have voiced concerns over orca 
> fiddling in this way with yelp). If this text box was automatically 
> given focus when the main window first appears, orca should read the 
> content of the text box and the user can review it with cursor keys. 
> Obviously the text box would be best to be not editable so the user 
> doesn't go and mess up these basic instructions. Also with this 
> solution, it could be so that if a user who knows orca were to just 
> press enter without listening to what comes up (IE. they do it 
> automatically as they "know" orca and want preferences) then nothing 
> will happen (IE. the user gets no unwanted side affect of their action).
That is a good suggestion in my opinion, but I wanted to provide a 
slightly better first impression with a minimum of user interface 
intervention. Orca has a very small and uncluttered window - and I just 
realised that nobody who uses orca knows, or cares how small it is - and 
I didn't want to clutter it up with extra stuff. A text box on the Orca 
window would end up being audio clutter I think.

> While what I have suggested with the text box might be an acceptable 
> compromise to me, I have to say it still feels a bit like wrapping the 
> user in cotton-wool and is a bit unnecessary.
yeah, I use Ubuntu, we do that for sighted users too.

Alan.