Re: [structural navigation] breadth-first walk? in time-to-reach algorith

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but this rhymes a lot with the model used in 
OSX 10.5 Voice Over (VO) in both the web and applications. For example, 
if I open up TextEdit (the Mac's built-in word processor) I can interact 
with either the text area or the ruler. If I hit the VO keys and down to 
drill down on the ruler then I can interact with all the buttons like 
centering and tab stops inside the ruler. If I do VO and up then I'm 
interacting with the chrome of the window with close, dock etc. Sort of 
the Russian nesting dolls or peeling an onion metaphor. So the idea is 
not without some precedent, albeit imperfectly implemented in OSX 10.4. 
 From the mailing lists I participate on, the model of interacting from 
a macro to micro view rather than flattening the object hierarchy into a 
continuum has been a stumbling block for those moving to the Mac, but 
once familiar it seems a preferable modus operandi.

CB

Al Gilman wrote:
> PS:
>
> What form does hierarchical navigation in screen readers take?
> In on-screen keyboards?
> Is there a consensus core of structural concepts that are
> utilized in multiple ATs?
>
> My mental model has been based on something that the user could
> achieve with a DAISY book or if the hierarchical structure of the
> page has been cast as a WAI-ARIA tree widget (initially collapsed
> below the level=2 nodes).
>
> I call this a breadth-first walk of the contents:  regions are walked,
> and their accessible names announced that are the children of one
> parent node (in the Table of Contents or Accessible Tree structure,
> some intermediate nodes in the DOM may be left out).  When the user
> finds a major section that they want to drill down into, they start
> walking the section names of the children of that node.
>
> Is there anything like that in AT today?
>
> This, to me, is the central target of structural markup in pages.
> Walking the accessible names of major blocks to see where you want
> to explore the finer structure.
>
> But if this is only available in DAISY, I am ready to back of and
> learn what is out there today that we are targeting.
>
>  I was told "header navigation is header navigation and
> structural navigation is totally different." At that poing I realized
> I don't know what form either takes in screen readers or on-screen
> keyboard tools today.
>

Received on Monday, 24 March 2008 19:28:19 UTC