[Blindmath] Accessibility of minitab

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the information, particularly regarding earlier versions of minitab. Yes the menus are a bit of an issue, window-eyes can manage them a bit but not perfectly, however that's far better than NVDA that reads nothing in the menus. The session view reads reasonably well, NVDA has no issues as far as I can tell, however window-eyes has trouble cursoring left and right. The worksheet area is more trouble, window-eyes seems to be able to read a row when moving up or down but left and right cursors says nothing, NVDA sees nothing. My initial look at the dialog boxes seemed a little better than your experience, however this wasn't a significant test of them.

As my course will only require a small use of minitab I guess its a case of which is simpler, work with minitab but possibly have a few screen reader issues or use something like R but have to learn that on my own. I will see if I can get an earlier version of minitab as that sounds like it may have worked better. However I do have reasons of my own possibly to prefer wanting to use R, mainly that using minitab means pulling out the windows computer where as R would let me work on the Mac.

Michael Whapples
On 11 Sep 2011, at 01:57, Jonathan Godfrey wrote:

> Hi Michael,
> 
> I of course offer R as an alternative but agree that using the same software as your classmates is probably a better way to go than working alone.
> 
> However, Minitab 16 is not entirely friendly.
> 
> The menus behave in unusual fashion as items get greyed out. Jaws has had trouble in this respect with Minitab since v14, which I could at least use because of the prior experience I'd built up in previous versions. My reliance on the menu structure kept my head above water back then.
> 
> The last version of Minitab I used as successfully as I could expect any fresh user  to use statistical software was v12. The output is all printed in the session window and is readable without using the review mode of a screen reader. This hasn't changed as far as I am aware for versions since. The menus were useable but the functionality of Minitab was fundamentally altered when they brought out v14.
> 
> The dialogue boxes are now a real mixture of useless to utterly frustratingly useless. Jaws does not interact well at all with them.
> 
> The syntax of Minitab code is useable. The problem is that resources for identifying the code is not easy to find anymore.
> If the lecturer or a classmate ensures that the commands for their work are printed, then you can use them Note that for the most part, Minitab commands can be abbreviated to the first four letters of a more natural command so occasionally the code looks more painful than it needs to be. In the days of DOS, Minitab v8, I typed out commands without the benefit of cut and paste functions that came about with Windows. I'm sure that if I was employed in a Minitab dominant workplace, that I could pick up the syntax again. I would point out that I am not currently looking for such employment.
> 
> So, I guess I would suggest that if you can't use an older version of Minitab and your lecturer can't provide the codes (irrespective of version) then you might choose to avoid Minitab. I can't think of anything taught in a modern introductory statistics programme that isn't available in Minitab since v10. Minitab's advances since then are cosmetic or for more advanced topics. If v12 is required you may need to do some  hunting with your university or send me a message off list and I will then see what I can find. No promises though as it's been a long time since I needed it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
> 
> 
> 
> _____
> Dr A. Jonathan R. Godfrey
> Lecturer in Statistics
> Institute of Fundamental Sciences
> Massey University
> Palmerston North
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