[BRLTTY] Let's improve documentation for the non blind

[timothyhobbs at seznam.cz]

I would like to point out, that one of my greatest complaints on sites that 
serve the blind is the frequency with which text size cannot be resized 
without horizontal scrolling.  This vital accessibility feature is of course
untestible for the blind, as they cannot see to see if their site is usable 
to the merely visually impaired.

It is also sad to me, that so few people know how to change the text size in
their web browsers.  I remember when I was visiting an older uncle of mine, 
he wanted to show me an article on his computer.  I sat down at the web 
browser to read the article, and of course I pressed Ctrl-+ a couple of 
times to get the font to a reasonable size.  My uncle immediately grabbed my
shoulder and shouted "how did you do that!?"  It took a few moments for me 
to even realize what he meant.  It never occurred to me that a person 
wouldn't know about the zoom feature.

I think that the plus minus buttons should be in the tool-bars of all web 
browsers by default.  After all, a majority of people who are older than 50 
need/want the feature and yet most of them never find out it exists.

Tim


---------- Původní zpráva ----------
Od: Dr. Volker Jaenisch <volker.jaenisch at inqbus.de>
Komu: brltty at mielke.cc, info at knopper.net
Datum: 29. 12. 2014 0:56:02
Předmět: Re: [BRLTTY] Let's improve documentation for the non blind

"
Hi Community!


On 26.12.2014 05:40, Dave Mielke wrote:

" 
The other side of this issue, though, is that adding 
that kind of extra verbage all over the place would be nothing but confusing 
clutter to a blind user who already understands the context. 
" Why can the blind people be confused by some structured information they 
cannot read at all?
As I stated in the subject the information base I like to bring up is for 
the non blind AND the 
visual impaired people AND the people that may assist the former noticed 
people BUT NOT the blind.
" 
So, in the end, 
especially in this area, the blind dudes tend to win out. 
" Yep. The - I call them - priviledged - blind dudes. Yeah they win.
But there are others - not so priviledged - blind and visual impaired people
out there. Maybe lots of.
And you never ever may hear of them since they are not capable to even use 
brltty to communicate with you.
My Brother for instance. And he comes from a  rich and educated country born
as a son of a professor.
He is lost. Not because of his capabilities. He has perfect memory - he 
knows exactly what happened at 12.14.1980 and he learns as quickly as hell.
Why he is lost has lots of reasons that are not brltty allone. But brltty 
can help him - because it is all he has. 
He has no jaws, no windows, only brltty. And he is stuck. -- and who is 
helping him?

Me. And I am not blind. And I have to come clear with brltty. And out there 
is legion of People not even understanding brltty. But they never 
communicate 
with you becouse the are not able to communicate with you at all. 
I think our mission is to reach as most people we can - or? 
" 
Now, perhaps, you 
have an additional bit of empathy for how blind users feel when they encounter 
all those graphically oriented web sites which are almost impossible for them 
to use.

As an aside: You bear the title Doctor, so, just perhaps, you've written a book 
or two. If not, you surely have colleagues who have. Have you ensured that 
those books have adequate and easy-to-understadn wording associated with each 
picture so that a blind reader can make sense of it?
" Rougly you state: "The non blind people do things that we blind cannot 
read so why should we blind people produce 
things for the non blind?" Sorry, but this argumentation sounds a bit 
revanchist to me.
Should we hearing people stop producing music since there are some deaf 
people on earth? Should deaf people no longer produce sounds for us hearing 
people?
I am sure you find out that your argument is ridiculous.
" 
I dig into the config of brltty and it all is clear and straight - if
someone knows where the keys "LeftGdf" or "LeftWheelUp"
are located on the physical device.

" 
LeftWheelUp should be easy enough to understand. There's a vertically oriented 
wheel at the left end of the top of the device. LeftWheelUp means rolling that 
wheel in the upward direction, i.e. toward the back of the device. I don't 
recall this ever having been a point of confusion in the past.
" " There is no wheel at this device at all. There are two rockers (Up/down)
together with a pushbutton (Press) left and right at the top that have take 
over the function of the former wheel of older versions.
" 
LeftGDF is a different matter. Yes, it'd be hard to guess which key this one 
is. I expect, though, that the documentation for the actual device does explain 
it. For the most part, we name the keys the same way the manufacturers have.
" It is completely ok to have a code internal naming convention which do not
accurately reflect changes in the design of the external world - as long as 
the user documentation is according to the user/producer naming of the 
buttons on the device. In case of the Focus 14 blue this is not true. The 
user documentation is misleading.  " " 
Also the documentation of the individual key bindings descriptions are
misleading:

go up one line: LeftWheelUp

If I read "go up one line" I imagine the cursor to go up. But in this
case only the reading focus goes up one line but not the cursor.

" 
Yes, that'd be a sighted person's perspective, but it's not a blind person's 
perspective. Since these descriptions are meant for quick reference by a blind 
person, it's their perspective which must be targeted.

You, as a sighted person, see the whole screen, so, in a single glance, you 
kind of know everything it says, where everything is, etc. So, where the cursor 
is, which area has special highlighting, etc, is the most important thing you 
want to be told about, so it's those areas that you tend to think about when 
movement is discussed.
" The different perception of the world does not change the need for a clear
terminology, 
well structured documentation and fast access to the things one search. 
If you do not agree on this fact we should end our discussion.

To the terminology:

You write:
go left one window

and :
go to end of line

The first operation moves the window one instance to the left.
The later moves the window to the end of the line, but no "window" is mentioned. Why not mention the "window"at the later?

To the structure and the access:
The list of operations is not structured nor even sorted.

Even the same operations that are represented by more than one key-code have definition listed 50 lines appart. E.g. 

go up one line: LeftWheelUp
...
50 lines
...
go up one line: RightRockerUp

A simple sort operation before putting out this lines would improve the readability a lot. 
And I am pretty sure that also the blind people will be happy about this.

Additional I would like to see some structure:
* Cursor Movement
* Window Movement
* Searching
* Setting Attributes
etc.