FLUID-1821: Image Reorderer instructions for screen reader users

[Allison Bloodworth]

Hi Anastasia,

What do the instructions say currently? It seems to me that a  
reference to the "virtual cursor" could be very confusing to non- 
screen reader users. It also seems that if there were a way to give  
JAWS users info about *only* the set of keystrokes they could use, it  
would be best to do that and minimize their cognitive load.

Cheers,
Allison

On Dec 11, 2008, at 12:53 PM, Anastasia Cheetham wrote:

>
> FLUID-1821 suggests some improvements to the Image Reorderer  
> instructions for screen reader users - for example, the instructions  
> that they need to turn off virtual cursor.
>
> In trying to implement these improvements, however, some questions  
> came to mind that I'm not sure how to deal with.
>
> Here's the source of the conundrum:
>
> We first implemented the keyboard movement using Ctrl + arrow keys.  
> We soon found that this key combination was already 'taken' by JAWS  
> for another purpose, so we found an unused combination: Ctrl + i, j,  
> k or m. Now, the Image Reorderer will work with either of these sets  
> of keys.
>
> The instructions that are both displayed and spoken describe both of  
> these keysets. However, JAWS users can't use whichever set they like  
> - only the letter version will work for them. Also, it could be  
> argued that non-screen reader users don't really need to be told to  
> turn virtual cursor off.
>
> So: should the spoken instructions be different than the visual  
> instructions? Is this a good idea? A bad idea?
>
> Thoughts from screen reader users? Thoughts from interaction  
> designers? Thoughts from people who have thoughts on the issue?
>
> -- 
> Anastasia Cheetham                   a.cheetham at utoronto.ca
> Software Designer, Fluid Project    http://fluidproject.org
> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre / University of Toronto
>
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Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
abloodworth at berkeley.edu