Re: [orca-list] Most accessible IDE for java

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Krishnakant <krmane openmailbox org> wrote:
> Yes from your perspective where there are different requirements and
> paradimes, you are absolutely correct.
> Of course current systems have few big advantages.
> I have to work with my sighted colleagues day in and day out.
> I have to exactly point out things to them graphically or you may say the
> way they see it visually.


I work with sighted colleagues too, but I usually don't need to know how
applications are presented visually to perform my task. I think this level of
information should be available, but it isn't good as the default approach to
presenting a braille or spoken interface. There are people who have the need
you describe, and this should be supported, but there are better ways of
creating effective spoken interaction.

There's a broader move toward virtual agents and spoken interaction at the
moment. The Linux and free software community is regrettably not at the
forefront of this work yet. If you've ever used an Amazon Echo (even if only
in a technology demonstration), you'll know first hand what a high-quality
spoken interface can do. People who buy such a device don't want to talk to it
about buttons, menus, sliders, entry fields etc. - they want to use the
vocabulary of the application domain.

If there's a sustained move toward the notion that applications need to
support such high-quality language-based interactions, then perhaps we'll move
beyond the treadmill of GUI accessibility, with all of its problems, and
toward a world in which user interfaces are inherently interactive and
language-based as well as graphical - either or both according to the user's
needs.