[nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page

Gary Wunder gwunder at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 31 20:35:23 UTC 2013 

Hello, Mike. Before I became the editor of the Braille Monitor, I was a
computer programmer for the University of Missouri Hospitals and Clinics.
When I had to do column checking to make sure things were lined up
correctly, I found it helpful to write a short utility that would start at
whatever column I told it and read me out what appeared, starting in that
column. I had an optional parameter saying how many characters the program
was to read from the starting column. In this way I could quickly look
through a file and get only the information I wanted to see. I was not happy
about having to write a program to do what others could do it intuitively,
but it was simple to write, and very helpful to use. Sometimes I had to be
innovative and figure out how to get information I was writing to the screen
to simultaneously be written to a file, because only if it was in a file
could I examine it with the program I had written in Perl or PL/I or Cobol,
depending on where I was in my career.

Although I wanted to do as much of my job as I could without sighted
assistance, there were times when I think doing so was impossible and other
harder to call times when it was impractical. Sometimes asking for the
assistance of a coworker required me to think about what I could do in
return so that we had a fair trade of time and energy. At other times what I
was asking was so insignificant that to worry about it would have itself
been a time waster.

I think that determining whether or not something is visually attractive is
a tough nut to crack. In the first place one has to know what is considered
visually attractive and in the second place has to know whether or not that
has been achieved in the work performed. What I do now is relatively simple
and straightforward in terms of producing an uncomplicated printed document,
but even in this case I rely on at least two proofreaders who are going to
be working from the document I have generated in Microsoft Word or the
document that we end up generating to produce the print edition. Those of us
who work on editing the monitor are not sloppy, but things do creep in that
it takes a proofreader to see. Some of these are formatting errors that are
not obvious using speech or braille, and some of them get through simply
because we have looked at a document so many times that we fail to give it
the same level of scrutiny that the proofreader applies. 

Susie may well have her own thoughts on all of this.


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mike Jolls
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 2:46 PM
To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page

Susie

 

Can I infer from your topic that you're totally blind?  Just asking because
you said you're using a Focus 80 display to do this work.  But that's more a
curiosity about you rather than making a statement or a judgement.

 

In this next question, I don't mean to "stir things up".  I'm just curious.
I'm wondering, how does a blind person go about evaluating a visual tool?
If someone said ... "here's the page .. see if the columns line up" ... for
example ... how would you do that if you were totally blind?  Not saying
it's impossible.  Obviously a sighted person would just look at it and make
the determination if it was or wasn't as desired.  Someone with vision loss
or no vision might have to have a tool that provided adequate information to
tell you about the data you want to compare.  For example, if you had to
compare if certain boxes lined up, you might have a tool that provides
starting column numbers.  Once you have the column numbers, it's just a
matter of comparing them.  But ... what tool or tools do you use to get the
data?  Obviously, nothing is impossible if you can get the tool to give you
the data on your terms, or you can get a sighted person to get you the data.
Then it's just an exercise in thinking.  I'm just curious how you get the
necessary data.

 

Obviously you'd (or rather I should say I would) prefer to do this on your
own ... have the tools so you can completely do it on your own ... so you
can set a good example in front of your peers and your boss, but maybe
that's not always possible.  You may just be limited to the tools you have
(such as JAWS) and your ingenuity, and you may just have to ask for human
help to get the information you need.  I'm also curious ... if you do have
to ask for help, what does that do to the respect you get from co-workers?
Are they less likely to give you really complicated programming tasks?

 

OK, I've sort of asked two questions.  As I'm say, I'm just curious.  Being
a partially sighted person with usable vision, I can (to a point) get visual
information, and I can do some of this visually.  So I don't have a total
good feel for what someone with total vision loss has to go through.

 

Thanks for the information

 

Mike Jolls

 

> From: Susan.Stanzel at kcc.usda.gov
> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 16:17:20 +0000
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> 
> I have done that and they said to change my document presentation to
screen layout. I did, but I am not sure that helped. I think I have it fixed
so things are not wrapping now. I checked with my JAWS cursor. Now for how
things are placed on the page, I plan to wait for sighted assistance on
Monday when I return to the actual office.
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Susie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gary Wunder
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 10:55 AM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> 
> I would not neglect calling FS tech support to get a read on this. My
guess is that a bit of sighted help would serve you well.
> 
> Gary
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy 
> Carcione
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 9:20 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> 
> I'm surprised your solution doesn't work. I guess Jaws is changing the
screen layout?
> My Alva display has different modes, line or structured. They display data
a little differently. Does your display have different display modes?
> Jaws also has the mysterious invisible cursor, which might show things
differently from the plain Jaws cursor.
> Sorry, I'm not being very helpful.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO" 
> <Susan.Stanzel at kcc.usda.gov>
> To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 9:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> 
> 
> > Hi Tracy,
> >
> > I don't have one. I have been using the JAWS cursor to go over a 
> > space at a time. I just thought if I could use my display and go 
> > down a column keeping my finger on the beginning of each column it would
be great.
> >
> > Susie
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy 
> > Carcione
> > Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 8:52 AM
> > To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> >
> > Hi Suzy.
> > Do you have an Optacon, by any chance? It works well with the new 
> > LCD monitors, and is still the best way to see independently what a 
> > layout looks like.
> > Tracy
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO" 
> > <Susan.Stanzel at kcc.usda.gov>
> > To: <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:50 PM
> > Subject: [nfbcs] evaluation display of a web page
> >
> >
> >> Hi Everyone,
> >>
> >> I have been given an assignment to clean up the appearance of a web
page.
> >> I have a Focus Blue 80 cell Braille display. I am just using it in 
> >> the normal mode. What I would like to do is actually see the 
> >> display which my sighted friends are seeing. I am tired of asking 
> >> if it looks better. Yes, I do think this is a unique assignment. 
> >> However, I know we have many web designors which obviously need to 
> >> have some idea of how something appears.
> >> I tried using the JAWS cursor but I can see enough to know that was 
> >> not accurate.
> >>
> >> Susie Stanzel
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >> in error, please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.
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