[Blindmath] Minitab

Wed Jun 5 13:38:07 UTC 2013

New Zealand was one of the driving forces behind the United Nations 
"Convention on Rights of Persons With Disabilities".  This treaty says 
people with disabilities have the right to information accessibility. 
It's really essentially the ADA for the world. I don't know specifically 
whether New Zealand ratified the treaty but it would be quite a shock if 
they didn't because it would never even have happened had New Zealand 
not championed it.

Also, I think New Zealand  has regulations similar to the 508 
regulations you hear Americans talk about so often. These 508 
regulations say government agencies in the United States are not 
supposed to buy inaccessible software if an accessible alternative is 
available. It puts the burden of proof on the agency. They are supposed 
to have to show they had to buy the inaccessible product. Of course, it 
doesn't always work that way. Anyway, I believe New Zealand has similar 
regulations. They call it the "National Disability Strategy".  Of 
course, all the laws and regulations in the world don't help if people 
ignore them. My experience here in the USA is that the vast majority of 
the time, people who manage software don't even know about the 
regulations and never consider accessibility. So then you have to raise 
a stink about it which  both makes you look like a troublemaker  and 
hardly ever works anyway. But, well, you can always give it a shot. What 
you really need is for the New Zealand equivalent of the National 
Federation of the Blind to raise the stink for you.

Here's a link to a page on New Zealand's National Disability Strategy. 
http://www.odi.govt.nz/nzds/

And here is a link to the wikipedia page about the United Nations Treaty 
that New Zealand sponsored:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_Persons_with_Disabilities

On 06/04/13 19:13, Jonathan Godfrey wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> I've communicated this with sales reps and no further. It's been a very long
> time since I've seen a sales rep at a conference or visiting our university
> though.
>
> As I am not a US national living overseas or resident in the US, I can't
> rely on legislation like s508 of the ADA to help any claim I might make with
> Minitab. New Zealand doesn't have any legislation that would help me at all
> on this topic as it happens and the community that might be interested in
> such legislation is too small at present to get some introduced. We also
> have the challenge that the majority of commercial operators like Minitab
> Inc. could just walk away without too much pain and suffering on their
> account as we are just too small to matter.
>
> If enough interest is found for making a more meaningful approach to
> Minitab, I'd like to be part of it. The problem is that once started on this
> route, you'd need to write up a small shopping list of similar software
> products that should be targeted. My standards of accessibility are
> different to some others on this list though. While some are willing to
> persevere with SPSS, I am not. Ditto for Minitab. Other products are just
> awful from an accessibility standpoint and would find universal condemnation
> from the blindness community. Statistica and GenStat are two products in
> this situation.
>
> Who do we take on first?
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Paul
> Chapin
> Sent: Wednesday, 5 June 2013 1:04 a.m.
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Minitab
>
> Has this information been sent to Minitab?  They seem to think they don't
> have a problem.
>
> Paul Chapin
> Academic Technology Specialist
> Amherst College
> X2144
>
> Amherst College IT staff will never ask for your password, including by
> email. Any email asking for any password or username is almost certainly
> bogus. Never click on a link in an email to a site that requires a login as
> the link may be bogus. Type in the address yourself. Please keep your
> passwords private to protect yourself and the security of our network.
>
> From: Jonathan Godfrey
> <a.j.godfrey at massey.ac.nz<mailto:a.j.godfrey at massey.ac.nz>>
> Reply-To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>
> Date: Monday, June 3, 2013 6:45 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Minitab
>
> Hi all,
>
> It's been a holiday weekend here and I couldn't send email while I was away.
> Minitab is one statistical package I do need to know a lot about and still
> must even though it is no longer accessible for me.
>
> I'm not sure if it's my material on the web Justin is referring to but I
> have documented my experiences with Minitab and other statistics software
> at:
> http://r-resources.massey.ac.nz/statsoftware/
>
>
> The Minitab part of that page says:
> Minitab
> I have used versions 8.2, 10.1, 11, 12.2.1, 13.3, 14,15, and 16 of Minitab.
> The last version of Minitab that was accessible was version 13. This version
> is now well out of date and will not function on more recent versions of
> Windows.
>
> Version 14 use a different worksheet for data which was not accessible
> although this is not so much of a problem once data is successfully
> imported. Students needing to use Minitab might succeed using version 14 if
> data is given in Minitab format. Another issue is that some dialogue boxes
> new to this version were not accessible. This includes the design of
> experiments and graph creation dialogues.
>
> Versions 15 and 16 have been altered to improve the visual experience of the
> sighted user. Menu items that have no relevance at the specific time that a
> user pulls up that menu are greyed out. This causes screen readers grief and
> the wrong item is read aloud in the majority of situations. I have used both
> of these versions (unwillingly) to create material similar to that created
> by my students, but my ability to do this is heavily reliant on my memory of
> the menus and dialogue boxes built up from previous versions of Minitab.
>
> Use of the command language of Minitab does remain an option. I started
> working this way in version 8.2 (for DOS) in 1995 while my sighted
> classmates were using a windows version (10.1 I think). My reason for using
> 8.2 was not a Minitab issue but was due to the inability of blind people to
> successfully work with the Windows operating system prior to Windows 95.
>
> The command syntax is not as intuitive as other languages and it is
> difficult to find people who are comfortable using the command language
> today.
>
> Last version tested: 16
>
> <end of section>
>
> My conclusion is that the blind student who feels that Minitab is the option
> they must follow is asking for a lot of extra work because their classmates
> won't be able to help, the staff might not be able to help, and Minitab Inc.
> isn't helping either.
>
> My advice to anyone contemplating use of Minitab is that they should ask
> their classmates to turn on the display of commands in the session window.
> Minitab's menus just create code in the background that is then passed into
> the engine. The code can all be typed out (albeit painfully) but it is
> achievable. You can save the commands in a text file and run the text files
> but the effort in learning the syntax etc. required for Minitab will exceed
> the effort required to do the same work in a more natural language.
>
> The only shortcut on offer is that the vast majority of commands printed
> need not be typed out in full. For any main command such as "regress" for
> example, you only need to type four letters "regr". It doesn't save much but
> every little bit helps.
>
> Sorry, I do not have any accessible information about the Minitab commands
> that I used to type out as that was over 15 years ago and life moved on to
> an accessible Minitab (temporarily).
>
> I'm not sure where to get a version 12 copy either. My one was a university
> licence based copy which became unusable when the licence system changed
> over when my colleagues moved from version 14 to 15. The old licence system
> was very easily cracked so Minitab change it. This made my crackable version
> useless for me so I tossed it out years ago.
>
> Jonathan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Justin
> Young
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 June 2013 5:27 a.m.
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] MiniTab
>
> Yes that would definitely be interesting to find out.  I've never used this
> software before now and don't know personally how older versions were
> accessibility wise, but from what I've read online they were better to use
> with screen readers than the current versions.  Perhaps you have to activate
> the accessibility portion?  If you do, I don't have a clue how that's done.
> Just throwing an idea out there.
>
> On 6/3/13, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com<mailto:mwhapples at aim.com>>
> wrote:
> It certainly was inaccessible when I was using it last year and people said
> it was accessible to an extent in version 12, so it seems like they did
> break accessibility.
>
> If they are claiming it is accessible then it might be worth contacting them
> to find out how to make it accessible.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 03/06/2013 14:20, Paul Chapin wrote:
> Am I to understand from this that they managed to take an accessible product
> and make it inaccessible?  They still claim to be 508 compliant but they
> don't appear to make the VPAT available on the web.
>
> Paul Chapin
> Academic Technology Specialist
> Amherst College
> X2144
>
> Amherst College IT staff will never ask for your password, including by
> email. Any email asking for any password or username is almost certainly
> bogus. Never click on a link in an email to a site that requires a login as
> the link may be bogus. Type in the address yourself. Please keep your
> passwords private to protect yourself and the security of our network.
>
> From: Justin Young
> <jty727 at gmail.com<mailto:jty727 at gmail.com><mailto:jty727 at gmail.com>>
> Reply-To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org><mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.o
> rg>>
> Date: Sunday, June 2, 2013 3:54 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org><mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.o
> rg>>
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] MiniTab
>
> Is there anywhere to find MiniTab version 12?
>
> On 6/2/13, Justin Young
> <jty727 at gmail.com<mailto:jty727 at gmail.com><mailto:jty727 at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> I think we might talk about that at some point.  Thanks for your
> help!:)
>
> On 6/2/13, Michael Whapples
> <mwhapples at aim.com<mailto:mwhapples at aim.com><mailto:mwhapples at aim.com>>
> wrote:
> The plugin I referred to is a plugin for the statistics package called R
> http://www.r-project.org and was to produce the graphs for statistical
> process control (SPC). Other than minitab can do SPC and so can the plugin,
> there is no relationship between the two (IE. the one does not provide an
> interface for the other, they are purely alternative software for doing
> SPC).
>
> If SPC is a topic you will be covering then I can look back at my work to
> remind myself what the R plugin is called and where it can be obtained from.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 02/06/2013 00:23, Justin Young wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback.  Where/how do you get this "plug-in"?
> Thanks so much!
>
> On 6/1/13, Michael Whapples
> <mwhapples at aim.com<mailto:mwhapples at aim.com><mailto:mwhapples at aim.com>>
> wrote:
> Hello,
> It was about a year ago, or 18 months, I was on a course where minitab was
> used as part of the course. You are correct about the accessibility (I think
> it was version 12 which was the last accessible version).
> However my university was unable to get hold of version 12, however they
> were agreeable for me to use other software for the tasks. May be something
> similar could be done in your case.
>
> You probably can find other software for the tasks you would need to
> undertake. What the alternative software is might depend a bit on what
> precisely needs to be done. In my case I ended up using R and a plugin,
> however R may not be the best option for everything.
> Sometimes for simpler things even excel can be enough.
>
>       From what I have heard, minitab 12 was usable with a screen reader but
> I have not had any practical experience and only know what others have told
> me.
>
> I feel this has not been too specific, but I would imagine if you went down
> the route of using other tools then there would be people who would be
> willing to help you learn how to use it for the tasks you need to perform.
> Feel free to ask questions on what accessible tools may be good for certain
> tasks.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On 01/06/2013 20:50, Justin Young wrote:
> Hello:
>
> My name is Justin Young and I'm a blind student currently taking an intro
> stats course which is a prerequesit for a master's program that I'll be
> starting in the Fall.  I just subscribed officially to this list today, but
> before I did I tried sending a message so not sure if that message will be
> sent as well.  If it is, I apologize for the double posting.  My course is
> using a program called MiniTab 16 and I've never used it before.  I tried
> playing with the program that I installed on my computer and its not really
> fun to play with, haha!
> I came across a thread via google from this list on this subject and wanted
> to ask a few questions.  I believe the last version accessible to screen
> readers was version 12 or 13?  How many on this list have heard of it or
> have used this program?  Any suggestions, advice, comments you have are
> greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Justin Young
>
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---
John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim at math.wisc.edu