Subject: Reposted/Corrected: setup.exe - Accessibility Concerns For Users Of Assistive Tech.
From: "Sabahattin Gucukoglu" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 01:53:37 +0100

This is a slightly amended repost of what was inadvertently only sent to 
the apps list on 22 Apr.  Since I believe I'm on-topic for both lists, 
have not received a response from anyone yet and I've witnessed other 
comments about setup.exe improvement here, thought I'd ask for your views. 

Hi all,

I am a totally blind individual and use a Windows screen reader (well, a 
few of them, actually - uRLs listed below) to navigate MSWindows.  While 
trying to use Cygwin's setup.exe, I find that the chooser - in most part - 
is inaccessible.  I have tried the latest available binary snapshot from 
http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin-apps/setup.html - same result.  I 
couldn't find any reference anywhere to accessibility issues in the 
installer, so here's my shot at a headsup.  First, I owe you an 
explanation:  

Screen reader: together with other accessibility aids termed "Access 
technology" or "Assistive technology" or "AT", and sometimes called a 
"Screen review" utility, this is software and/or hardware which makes 
viewing of the screen through speech and braille output on a synthesiser 
of one form or another and/or braille terminal possible, without 
abstracting the interface of the programs it is making accessible to 
disabled (visually impaired people).  Magnifiers fall inside this 
category, to an extent, too, as do onscreen keyboards and head wands.  
Demos of (arguably) the three most commonly used screenreaders are 
available for free download at their respective vendors' sites:
Hal (Dolphin): http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk/
Window-Eyes (GW Micro): http://www.gwmicro.com/
JAWS For Windows (Freedom Scientific): http://www.freedomscientific.com/  

Certainly, downloading one of these utilities (I'd recommend JAWS - 
despite myself, mind - since it is very verbally helpful for beginners) 
and replicating the problem for yourself gives you a superb appreciation 
of the difficulty here.  Not to worry, though - you're not the only 
offenders, by far. ;-)   

Actually, you're doing alright, until we reach the package chooser.  Some 
good guidelines for general all-round accessibility success:
* Tab order - make the tab key focus each and every interactive control.
* Keyboard shortcuts - make use of them.  Lots of them.  Really - for 
every button or menu item...  We use the keyboard, not the mouse.
* Standard controls - please refrain from using non-standard classes and 
controls if not necessary.  The Win32 API does make standard controls 
surprisingly flexible.  For the chooser, it sounds like a tree view is 
what you want.
* Tips - if you must use graphics in your interactive controls, then 
provide textual indication of what they mean; tip the graphics, or else 
provide a changing status field that reflects selections made.  So, when 
you alter the selection state of a package, try leaving us some status 
information in a small bar near the bottom of the window or beside the 
selected text (EG "Installed: Pine"), perhaps nicely included in the disk 
space usage field.  We're smart enough to know when a selection is made 
based on how the numbers change in such fields... though explicit mention 
would be lovely.  I like your multiselection listbox usage in the select 
mirrors screen - that involves no custom bitmaps, if you can do this for 
your chooser, that'd be neat.
* Standard dialogs - shouldn't be much need to change what you already 
have, but try to keep your tab key from moving onto group box text and 
make it move to real controls, and keep as standard as possible in window 
style, as found in typical MS- provided Windows apps and dialogs.

As I say, the best thing you can do is, well, try it with a screen reader. 
Since the chooser is not tab accessible and we only have at best the 
ability to simulate simple mouse clicks on text, it is very difficult to 
use the chooser to any practical purpose with any screen reader.  

If anyone needs clarification, please let me know - I'm anxious that you 
get this right.  I should like to use Cygwin to help my fulltime migration 
to Linux or BSD at some stage, but there's a Windows infrastructure on my 
service machine which I think Cygwin will accommodate nicely to fill in 
the service gaps while not requiring complete reconfiguration of the 
underlying OS and providing the advantages in the graphical Windows that 
is already available.   

Cheers,
Sabahattin
- -- 
Thought for the day:
    Intuition (n): an uncanny sixth sense which tells people 
    that they are right, whether they are or not.

Latest PGP Public key blocks?  Send any mail to:
<[email-masked]>

Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Phone: +44 (0)20 7,502-1615
Mobile: +44 (0)7986 053399
http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
Email/MSN: <[email-masked]>

--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/