Image Reorderer code question

[Daphne Ogle]

Mike & Colin,

Thanks for the great feedback.  I'm working on updating the tasks and  
have questions / concerns about the wording.  We really want the users  
to do a task they might do normally with the image reorderer.  Is it  
realistic that a user would go in saying, I want to move the X image  
to be the 5th in the row?  I think it is more realistic that they want  
to move X image in between Y and Z images.  Which says to me we need a  
way for them to know *where* they are as they are "dragging"the  
image.  I'm thinking that as they 'shift + right arrow', for instance,  
we would want a screen reader to say something like "dropped between X  
and Y (X and Y being the image names).  Does this make sense to you?

Knowing we don't have anything like this implemented yet, the question  
becomes, how should the tasks work for the user test.  I tempted to  
have a couple tasks like Mike suggests so we can see how the  
interaction of moving the images works.  But also including a few  
tasks like "put the mangosteen between the pear and apple" and keeping  
the one that requests them to "move the mangosteen to the end".  I  
don't want to set people up to fail with these last tasks but I do  
want to see how they would try to figure it out.  Will they have to  
try to read through all the images and try to remember them and the  
order.  Talk about cognitive load!  Plus I feel like we may get some  
good suggestions from them about what would be helpful.  Thoughts?

-Daphne

On Apr 6, 2009, at 6:11 PM, Colin Clark wrote:

> Hey Daphne,
>
> The default markup for the Image Reorderer is not table-based. Mike  
> Elledge's comments about the way to phrase the test plan make a lot  
> of sense to me.
>
> I know that Everett spent a bit of time playing around with the  
> Image Reorderer using a screen reader and found the lack of hard  
> stops at the beginning and end of the list rather disorienting. He  
> had some other ideas for how we might be able to provide additional  
> cues to help orient the user. I think that feedback is probably  
> archived on the mailing list.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Colin
>
> On 6-Apr-09, at 8:57 PM, Daphne Ogle wrote:
>
>> As we've been updating the user testing protocols for relevance to  
>> users using adaptive technologies a few questions have come up.
>>
>> Here's one from Mike E. that I could use some help answering:
>>
>> "Hi all--
>>
>> Is the image reorder based on an html table structure? If not blind  
>> users won't have a sense of middle or row. If the reorderer isn't  
>> based on table structure, have them move an item to a particular  
>> position within the list of objects (ex. "move item so that it is  
>> the fifth object in the list")."
>
> ---
> Colin Clark
> Technical Lead, Fluid Project
> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
> http://fluidproject.org
>

Daphne Ogle
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
daphne at media.berkeley.edu
cell (510)847-0308