Re: [SEC508] Audible indicator when pc is working

[Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM>]

Hi Joe,

Doing this well depends significantly on the details of the audio 
architecture & text-to-speech architecture of the computer system in 
question.  outSPOKEN Macintosh users may remember that there was a high 
level of integration of speech and non-speech audio from the computer.  
VoiceOver also does a fair amount of that.  In both cases a single 
vendor (pretty much) controlled both the audio and the text-to-speech 
and the screen reader software stack.  In such an environment, adding in 
the functionality you seek - something like an audio hum whenever a 
watch/hour-glass mouse cursor is displayed for more than ~3 seconds - is 
fairly straightforward.  Creating something like an audio hum for 
application-specific "waits" (like a web page loading or a large 
document loading - where the mouse cursor doesn't change) is more 
complicated from the point of view of the screen reader figuring out 
when the system is in a "wait" condition.

From the audio/text-to-speech side, unfortunately support isn't (or at 
least when I last looked, wasn't) there in Windows (which is why 
outSPOKEN for Windows didn't carry over this functionality from 
outSPOKEN Mac) and especially not in UNIX (where there is a multiplicity 
of audio sub-systems various UNIX distributions use).  Something like a 
spoken "please wait" is possible of course...


Regards,

Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect & Principal Engineer,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.


> Is there any way to have an audible indication that the pc is working
> when the screen reader is suspended?
>
> Sighted users have visual indicators (like the spinning globe) to let
> them know the pc is still processing.  The screen readers will say
> things like "please wait ...", but not always.
>
> I'm sure all screen reader users have had the experienced where their pc
> stops talking and eventually they powered off the pc to start over.  I
> think this sometimes results in damaged files.  Recently we seem to be
> having more incidents of screen reader users powering off their stalled
> computers and having more damaged files.
>
> As a matter of accessibility, shouldn't the operating system also
> provide and audible indicator whenever they provide a visual indicator
> to warn users that the computer is processing?  Or is there a simple
> utility that could accomplish this?
>
>
> Joe Roeder
> Senior Access Technology specialist
> National Industries for the Blind
> phone: (703) 310-0524
>  
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