Greetings:
I thought that the readers of the DACX list would be interested
in the response of one Mike Freeman to the alpha draft paper on
Recommendations for Increasing the Accessibility of Motif. Here
it is.
From: mikef@pacifier.com (Mike Freeman)
Subject: Motif Access for the Blind
To: beth@cc.gatech.edu (Beth Mynatt)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 11:54:57 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: curtisc@winternet.com (Curtis Chong),
buhrow@lothlorien.nfbcal.org (Brian Buhrow), whostrander@bpa.gov
Reply-To: mikef@pacifier.com
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Hello, Beth.
I have just read with great interest the Alpha-draft (February
28, 1995) of your recommendations for increasing accessibility of
Motif to people with disabilities. Being blind, my focus is,
naturally enough, on efforts to make Motif applications
accessible via screen-reading software/hardware. Before
commenting upon your recommendations, let me congratulate you on
a relatively lucid set of guidelines (something which, in my
opinion, is not always easy to accomplish in the X environment).
Please bear in mind while reading what follows that I am not an X
programmer and have only the barest acquaintance with X-windows
concepts. Thus, if what I say doesn't make sense, I appologize.
With a few exceptions (notably that of Mr. Brian Buhrow, Chair of
the Research and Development Committee of the National Federation
of the Blind), this is a predicament faced by most blind computer
programmers and users today and it is a principal problem
hampering intelligent discussion of X-access by the blind who,
after all, are the ultimate beneficiaries of this research and
who, therefore, should have a great deal to say in shaping it.
In discussing recommendations for alternatives to the mouse for
input operations, your recommendation of implementation of a
flexible keyboard mapping and remapping system makes a great deal
of sense. From the user's standpoint, it would be helpful if the
method of remapping were the same across applications. It also
would be helpful if there was an "escape key" which, when hit,
would tell Motif to pass along whatever keystroke was hit next
transparently to the application for processing. (This is
perhaps to naive a way of putting things -- I am unclear as to
who is controlling the keyboard -- Motif itself or the
application -- but the net effect of an escape-key would be to
tell the machine to interpret literally whatever the user struck
immediately *after* it was entered.) In implementing these or
any other keyboard access features, it is my opinion that there
will continue to be access problems until and unless the Motif/X
standard is modified to *force* common access method and to
deprive the application programmer of the freedom to program the
interface as s/he likes (possibly bypassing the access
recommendations/hooks). There may be performance penalties.
This, however, is merely an excuse in my opinion as no one seems
particularly bothered by the *tremendous* performance penalty
taken simply by using a windows-style interface as opposed to a
strictly text-based interface!
With respect to widget programming, a similar observation is, in
my opinion, in order. To ensure access for people with
disabilities, it is my belief that, for the immediate future,
atleast, we shall have to insist that Motif/X-windows be
rewritten such that, for example, programmers will not be allowed
to bypass X11R6 hooks, despite performance penalties. Also, we
shall have to insist that widgets *always* have text descriptions
accompanying them, omission of which would cause programming
errors. (This might tax the expressive capabilities of some
programmers but, theoretically, they should have taken English
Composition in college, so it would be good practice for them!)
The only alternative is the development of rather sophisticated
artificially-intelligent screen-reading systems which could
actually interpret the bit-mapped screens obviating programmers
of providing *any* special hooks. While this is, perhaps, the
most desirable solution to access problems for the blind and is
actually being discussed in some circles, it is certainly not in
the immediate future and meanwhile jobs are being lost! Hence,
it is desirable to provide solutions to the access problem that,
insofar as possible, will not involve effort or extensive
recoding by Motif or X-windows programmers. (For example, I
doubt that I could cajole the few programmers at Bonneville with
knowledge of X-window and Motif programming techniques to
reprogram our power system applications. However, if standard
Motif could be made to talk under Vax/VMS, it would,
theoretically, at least, be merely a matter of a system reload
with the modified Motif to give me application access via
speech.)
I hope that these observations have made sense and that they may
be of use. Please keep me informed as to your progress. Also,
despite what some industry gurus are saying, don't forget us
Vax/VMS folks! It would be nice if your work could be ported to
the Vax/VMS environment. I'd be glad to help in any way I can
(which probably isn't much as I am not an X guru).
Cordially,
-- Mike Freeman | Internet: mikef@pacifier.com GEnie: M.FREEMAN11 | Amateur Radio Callsign: K7UIJ Member, R&D Committee, National Federation of the Blind ... Take my advice; I certainly don't use it!Regards,
Curtis Chong curtisc@winternet.com
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