ADA Compliency

[Rick Harrison]

Hi Curry,

I have a couple of questions for you.

Is a trackpad or a trackball any better of an experience for you?

Have you tried using the mac OS voice commands or controls?

Dragon Dictate used to have voice commands and I seem to
recall you could make your own too.  I don’t recall if that was
by using Apple Script or hooking it into Automator.

The compliance thing really has to be built into the operating system.
I think Apple used to be better about it, and I think every few years
they try again to see if it can be made better.  Apple has the money
and resources to do it. Small developers don’t have the money or
resources and they fail a lot just trying to make user interfaces that 
people without disabilities use.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties. I hope you are able to find
solutions that work for you. 

Cheers,

Rick



> On May 29, 2020, at 7:38 AM, Curry Kenworthy via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Assistive tech is a wonderful thing, and yet even when that "compliancy" is achieved, the effort is doomed to fall short of real-world needs for many people.
> 
> That's because the "compliancy" designers tend to think in all-or-nothing ideals - and the subset of opinions and studies popular in their social/professional cliques - not addressing the reality of actual ability ranges in the population. Meanwhile standard UI designers tend to throw out some really good ideas. Sometimes people are involved in great works, yet still CLUELESS about things that would help a lot of real people.
> 
> For example I have a neurological/muscular disease that impairs fine movement and deforms the hand shape and ability a bit. My hands now look like ghost of Christmas past or grim reaper hands. In the past they looked almost normal but the movement was already impaired. You don't want these hands. I drop things a lot.
> 
> Both the nerves and muscles are damaged. That affects using the mouse - not a huge effect, but I click a few pixels off-target sometimes. Especially since I also have to keep the mouse on a fairly responsive movement setting to avoid tiring my arm throughout the day. I'm very comfortable using the mouse if set up correctly.
> 
> So the old Mac OS had the window Close box on the OPPOSITE side as the resize and minimize. That reduced by a large percentage the number of misclicks that I had with any important consequences. That was a good feature based on actual research and/or logical thinking. It helped me achieve more and mess up less.
> 
> But Mac OS X threw that and other good things right out the window, in favor of "lickable" colored circles side by side. Just like Windows, but crammed together into a smaller area that was even more prone to misclicks. So Mac was no longer a better interface for me. I switched to Windows for my main work, and that helped save energy and improve accuracy. That's just one example of many.
> 
> And when it came to mobile, Apple made a giant list of HIGs to enforce on all software - except for their own software, of course. They broke their own rules when they felt like it, and their mobile UI is harder for me to use as a result.
> 
> Their rules are arbitrary with selective enforcement. And their rules (both mobile and desktop) actually sometimes IMPEDE rather than promote making UI designs to help people with handicaps and the elderly. Plus the rules change based on touchy-feely trends, like the hat fashions of yore.
> 
> I'm talking about Apple because they are the movers and shakers that directed where we are now. Others (MS, Google) largely followed or went in a similar direction.
> 
> The herd (including the elite producer herd) mostly thinks binary about abilities - either you can use a mouse or you can't. But it's not true. I can use a mouse pretty darn well, but I have to be careful about misclicks. (And sometimes accidental double-clicks that were intended as single.)
> 
> Thank goodness we do have some comfort adjustments such as mouse sensitivity and double-click time, etc. That's smart. But when it comes to "accessibility" the old binary thinking kicks in and the options and design are often pretty retarded, and only realistic for a smaller subset of the portion of our population that has some type of impairment.
> 
> Thankfully they may be focusing on the most heavily impaired, so that's good to at least help some people, but even then, I've had some experience with those and when I see "compliancy" I tend to shake my head. (And worry about the future as my own impairments grow.) Ideals and cliques/trends vs reality....
> 
> What we often need is some SMART, to use that word as a noun the way Andy Griffith did. UI needs to be smart. Standards can be good, but when a group starts making standards or guidelines, they often design it partly dumb/bad, and inflict as much harm as good. It could be so much better. Desktop and mobile.
> 
> It's the same with physical products. I can't open Amazon's "frustration-free" packaging even with pliers. Whoever designed and approved that one was seriously out of touch with reality - a total farce. I can open a regular taped box easily with a cutter. Similar results happen sometimes in software, when good efforts go bad. If only more of these efforts could be compliant AND smart!
> 
> Society needs to mature enough to reality that there is a pretty wide range of ability. I can do things on a computer (with a mouse) that would amaze many people, yet I have those misclicks and double-clicks to watch out for.
> 
> I can (or could) do a wide range of voices/accents, which most people can't do, yet I've had several periods in life (including right now after COVID for many weeks and ongoing) when I can only say a few words without getting out of breath. I've had to cancel meetings, and am getting set up to make instructional videos WITHOUT talking.
> 
> I can hear and see quite well and I catch many proofreading errors that others miss and can spot mistakes in code instantly sometimes (one client calls it my superpower!) yet my eyes can't tolerate the UI "dark mode" that's trending. I am a great listener (another superpower) yet can't make out the words quite as well when listening as most people do, especially for song lyrics or speeches/TV shows. For those I like to turn on CC just in case.
> 
> Ability ranges....
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Curry K.
> 
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