Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- Subject: Re: Newbie question: Section 508 and "full keyboard access" on Mac OS X
- From: Andrew Kirkpatrick <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 09:00:13 -0400
Apple offers some great features for a variety of disabilities, but a person
who is blind will not currently be able to to use OSX. The ability to speak
the text under the mouse is not useful for people who are not using a mouse.
This support is beneficial for people with some degree of visual impairment,
many of whom many opt to use it in concert with the zoom features of the OS.
As expected, the amount of spoken text in different applications varies
widely. AOL instant messenger, for example, voices the window title and not
much else until you go into dialogs where some standard controls are used.
Mail.app does a far better job, but isn't perfect. The text that is part of
the OS is better still, and examples of unspoken text are fewer in number
(e.g. Apple system profiler/logs).
Since there is no screen reader that is currently available for OSX, the
"spoken text under the mouse" feature can get away with certain requirements
for a blind user such as speaking the state of controls as well as the text.
(e.g. Mouse over the mail.app toolbar and notice that grayed icons are
spoken the same as active ones).
Apple has done a great deal of work laying the groundwork so that it is
prepared for a day when a screen reader is developed, but until such time,
OSX will not be the choice of people who are blind.
AWK
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The speech support in Mac OS X is very good. There are some settings you
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have to turn on in the Speech preference pane (Spoken User Interface tab,
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especially the "Text Under the Mouse" checkbox) and the Universal Access
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preference pane in System Preferences. If you set it up right, your Mac will
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speak every item under the mouse, and the text of alerts as they appear.
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I believe the location of these settings will be rationalized a bit better
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in Panther.
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I should say that I haven't tested this exhaustively to see what, if
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anything, does not get spoken. But the head of Apple's speech group, Kim
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Silverman, makes a point of telling developers every year at WWDC to test
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their choice of text for user interface items with speech turned on, to make
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sure the words are easily understood. This is something that every Mac OS X
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application, even old ones, get "for free" as Apple likes to say.
--
Andrew Kirkpatrick
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
E-mail: email@hidden
Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
617-300-3400 (main NCAM)
617-300-2489 (TTY)
WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate,
inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of
learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.
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