Rockbox.org home
release
dev builds
extras
themes manual
wiki
device status forums
mailing lists
IRC bugs
patches
dev guide



Rockbox mail archive

Subject: Re: accessibility of the rockbox utility

Re: accessibility of the rockbox utility

From: Dominik Riebeling <dominik.riebeling_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 20:17:52 +0000

On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 6:38 PM, alex wallis
<alexwallis646_at_googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi well I am happy to try to give input, can you please explain what it is
> exactly you want to know? I mean I can go through with jaws and tell you
> about all the various buttons and tabs and dialogs that are not read, but I
> guess that is not what you are asking for my input on?

Well, maybe it would be best to start with the basics: how do you (or
in general, how do blind people) expect it to work? Say, you
downloaded this program (which doesn't need to be Rockbox Utility) and
started it. You don't know the program, so how do you figure how to
use it? Are you moving around with the mouse, trying to hover all
buttons and stuff to get them read? Do you use the Tab key to go
through all items you can select and expect them to be voiced? Do you
use the Alt button to activate the menu and go through that with the
arrow keys? Or something completely different?

> I guess the first start for me giving input is to do an accessibility
> comparison between jaws and nvda to examine the accessibility diferences.

Yes, that would definitely be a good thing. Also, you should make sure
to test with the latest version of Rockbox Utility, as there have been
issues in Qt itself in the past. Generally speaking, newer versions of
Rockbox Utility use newer versions of Qt, thus newer versions of
Rockbox Utility should always be better from the accessibility point
of view. I wouldn't be surprised if some issues are still around in
Qt, but I definitely know that accessibility of Qt itself improved,
which directly affects Rockbox Utility.

> Also, what exactly do you mean when you ask how a blind user sees the
> interface, the question is kind of broad. Are you asking how we navigate the
> user interfaces of applications?

Yes, like this. My naive view on this topic is that I as sighted user
have a visual impression of the application, so you need to have an
impression of the application as well. For example, I consider the
menu as a tree-like view: you have one top-level node "File" with the
childs "Install Rockbox Utility on player", "Configure" and "Exit".
Then there is another top-level node "Actions" with other childs. On
the other hand, as sighted user I'm more driven by the visual
appearance -- i.e. the buttons and tabs in the main interface rather
than the menu. What impression does a blind user have? Is it more
menu-centric? Are the tabs considered to have some specific structure?
To me, the tabs group functions, but do they work that way if you're
using a screen reader?

> So by that, do you mean if a button or dialog is not read, you need me to
> explain what is going on when I say that it isn't read propperly? from
> examining the rb utility interface, the main problem at least when running
> jaws seems to be the names of controls and tabs are not read. So for
> example, jaws gives indications about the type of control we are on but will
> not read the name linked to that control. It states that controls are
> buttons or tabs but that is it.

How are you accessing the buttons / tabs? Are you using the tab key to
navigate or the mouse? I've seen differences in the past with NVDA, so
I won't be surprised if there are differences using Jaws as well.


 - Dominik
Received on 2009-05-10

Page template was last modified "Tue Sep 7 00:00:02 2021" The Rockbox Crew -- Privacy Policy