[Promotion-technology] Fw: BlindNews: Vista's accessible attitude: Ease of Access Centre getsthumbs up

[Robert Jaquiss]

Hello Colleagues:

     I thought this would be of interest.

Happy Holidays,

Robert

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <BlindNews at GeoffAndWen.com>
To: <BlindNews at BlindProgramming.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 10:38 PM
Subject: BlindNews: Vista's accessible attitude: Ease of Access Centre 
getsthumbs up


> The Register (UK)
> Tuesday, December 19, 2006
>
> Vista's accessible attitude: Ease of Access Centre gets thumbs up
>
> By Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research
>
> Published Tuesday 19th December 2006 09:58 GMT
>
> Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system has just been released for 
> corporate consumption.
>
> I have had an initial look at it from an accessibility perspective.
>
> There are a variety of new functions that aid accessibility but the big 
> change is really one of attitude toward accessibility for users. Microsoft 
> commissioned a survey on accessibility in 2003 by Forrester Research and 
> the headline result was that 57 per cent of adults who are 18 to 64 years 
> old in the USA might benefit from accessible technology. This high 
> percentage came as a surprise to Microsoft; the designers then began to 
> make accessibility more discoverable to all people, not just people with 
> severe disabilities.
>
> Microsoft had already planned to improve the accessibility in Vista, but 
> the survey changed the attitude towards accessibility. Instead of it being 
> available to users who self-identified as having a severe disability, it 
> had to be made easily discoverable by the majority of users who needed the 
> features but did not consider themselves as being disabled. Anyone who 
> uses Vista should be encouraged to look at how it is set up and see if the 
> computer can be made easier for them to see, hear, and use.
>
> The change in attitude can be seen in several ways:
>
> The Ease of Access Centre is on the login page so you see it as soon as 
> you log on to Vista. In XP it is buried in the control panel section.
> There is a new icon for the Ease of Access Centre:  It was a wheelchair in 
> XP which was unfortunate, firstly because wheelchair users who are 
> paraplegic may not have a problem accessing PCs, and secondly it stopped 
> other people clicking on it because they would assume it was not relevant. 
> The new icon is abstact but bears some resemlance to the old wheelchair 
> icon and the stylised arrows are meant to represent the different forms of 
> input and output that are available when customising Windows Vista.
> However, the biggest change is in the Ease of Access Centre itself. It now 
> includes a questionnaire that is designed to identify any impairments in 
> the user with questions such as "Do you have any difficulty distinguishing 
> colours" or "Does background noise make it difficult for you to speak on 
> the phone"? Based on this series of questions, suggestions are made as to 
> how to change the standard setup of the computer so that it is easier to 
> see, hear, and use.
> This change of attitude really moves accessibility from being the concern 
> of people with severe disabilities to being part of ease of use and 
> therefore potentially relevant to any user. As I have argued elsewhere we 
> are all impaired to some extent (for example I do not have the IQ of 
> Einstein, or the eyesight of an eagle, or the hand-eye coordination of a 
> professional computer games player) so it is important that accessiblity 
> and ease of use are available right across the spectrum.
>
> The assisitive technology built into Vista includes an improved 
> screen-magnification facility called Magnifier, a greatly improved 
> text-to-voice system, called Narrator, the new Windows Speech Recognition 
> system (there was one in Office XP but it was a very well kept secret), 
> and On Screen Keyboard. Having these built-in will enable people with 
> minor impairments to take advantage of them (in previous releases the 
> extra cost would have greatly limited the take up). I can imagine more 
> people dictating emails because it is quicker than typing and also reduces 
> hand strain; or a person with dyslexia switching on the text-to-voice 
> while still reading the screen.
>
> The improved accessibility in Vista has had a side, but important, benefit 
> to the development of Microsoft products. The developers now have to test 
> new products with the built-in accessibility tools. This type of testing 
> can very quickly pick up errors; for example if you listen to a computer 
> talking you will immediately pick up grammar errors and also get fed up if 
> it just says "link, link, link..." without any indication of what the link 
> is to.
>
> The importance of accessibility testing as a way to improve overall 
> quality will be enhanced further when automated testing tools can take 
> advantage of UI Automation (the succesor to Microsoft Active 
> Accessibility) which will be officially announced with the general 
> availability of Vista early in 2007.
>
> Vista ease of use is a major step towards bringing accessibility into the 
> business-as-usual mainstream of computing.
>
> Copyright © 2006, IT-Analysis.com
>
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/19/vista_accessibility/
>
>


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