[CEUD-ICT] CEUD-ICT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 12

Wed Aug 5 12:05:11 IST 2009

Hello all, 

A quick thank you for all the very helpful comments on my Driver Theory Test
DVD query. 

I'll now be able to put together a more informed response to the RSA. I'll
let you know if and when I hear back. 

Kindest regards, 

Antoinette

_________________

Dr Antoinette Fennell

Research Fellow - Project Scientist - Universal Design

TrinityHaus

McNamara Centre for Construction Innovation and Sustainability

Trinity College Dublin

Dublin 2

Ireland

Tel: +353 (0)1 896 3720

Email: antoinette.fennell at tcd.ie

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Official Driver Theory Test DVD (Donal J. Rice)
   2. Captions, subtitles in HTML 5 (Joshue O Connor)
   3. Re: Official Driver Theory Test DVD (Mark Magennis)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:50:59 +0100
From: "Donal J. Rice" <DJRice at nda.ie>
Subject: Re: [CEUD-ICT] Official Driver Theory Test DVD
To: afennel at tcd.ie, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design ICT
	mailing 	list <ceud-ict at list.universaldesign.ie>
Message-ID:

<OF1407D805.9BDA3C97-ON80257603.0034D9A7-80257603.005C8EFB at justice.ie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"

Antoinette.

I would be interested to know what evidence exists to support the notion
that "normal fonts users" ... "are the majority".  When deciding the
preferences for such an application I would think it important to know the
percentiles of the population who find these ranges comfortable and usable.
I wonder does the RNIB See It Right guidelines provide any information here
- it certainly does for print media.

There is a relationship drawn between the legal eyesight requirements of
drivers and the choice of font size.  This would appear to me to be
'convenient thinking' rather than fact based.  The visual acuity (0.5 or
6/12) for driving in Ireland is not directly related, as far as I know, to
the ability to comfortably read font sizes on screen.  People with
hyperopia (longsightedess) may require larger fonts on screen but have
perfectly adequate eyesight for driving.

Regards,
D?nal.

             Antoinette                                                    
             Fennell                                                       
             <afennel at tcd.ie>                                           To 
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             ign.ie                                                Subject 
                                       [CEUD-ICT] Official Driver Theory   
                                       Test DVD                            
             30/07/2009 10:11                                              

             Please respond to                                             
              afennel at tcd.ie;                                              
             Please respond to                                             
                Centre for                                                 
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             Universal Design                                              
             ICT mailing list                                              
             <ceud-ict at list.un                                             
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Hello all,

A personal ICT query, if you don't mind, with regard to accessibility.

I recently purchased the Official Driver Theory test DVD from the Road
Safety Authority, and the DVD would not run on my computer as I have the
settings in Large Font mode.

A message appeared which said "You are currently running in large fonts
mode. Unfortunately, the official driver theory test (in common with many
other multimedia titles) cannot run effectively in large fonts mode. In
order to run this software you will need to manually change the settings to
"small font" mode. To do this, proceed as follows: .........."

When I changed the settigns to small font mode, I lost all of the
personalised changes I had made on my computer (icon size, icon label size,
menu label size etc.), all of which have to be set manually.

I emailed the RSA and received the following reply:

"The engine that we developed for this product has ALWAYS required the user
to be in "Normal Fonts" mode. The fact is that the fonts used in the
product
ARE larger than average. The reason that we require the software to be in
"Normal Fonts" mode isn't because we want to make the fonts smaller (we
could do that in large fonts mode simply by making the fonts smaller to
compensate!), it's because we want accurate control over the size of the
fonts.  In large fonts mode, Windows automatically boosts the size of the
font on buttons, labels, edit boxes etc (not by making the point size
larger
(say from 8pt to 10 pt), but by drawing an 8pt font larger on screen than
usual...  For most applications, this causes SOME problems (text
overflowing
buttons for example), but in a multimedia application like ours, where the
layout of the screen needs to be precisely controlled, it is a disaster -
making it impossible to properly arrange the screens so that they work for
both normal fonts users (who are the majority - especially of drivers who
are required in law to have a certain acuity of eyesight) and those using
large fonts (who are in the minority). We therefore took the view that we
would design the screen layouts  in "normal fonts" mode and insist / warn
our users that they needed to be in the same mode, to ensure that they see
what we intended them to see. I realise that this seems odd - but the way
that Windows implements "large fonts" is that it simply changes the DPI
(dots per inch) setting for the computer  and in a layout-sensitive
application, this simply doesn't work very well.  It does NOT mean that the
fonts in the application are going to be too small to be read."

So in order to use the DVD, you have to sacrifice your personalised
settings. I personally amn't happy with this response, but I know nothing
about software development, so can't say whether or not an alternative
could
be easily developed.

Considering that the RSA is a public body, is the developers response
acceptable? Any advice that can be sent to the software developer to solve
this issue?

All the best,

Antoinette

_________________

Dr Antoinette Fennell

Research Fellow - Project Scientist - Universal Design

TrinityHaus

McNamara Centre for Construction Innovation and Sustainability

Trinity College Dublin

Dublin 2

Ireland

Tel: +353 (0)1 896 3720

Email: antoinette.fennell at tcd.ie

_______________________________________________
CEUD-ICT mailing list
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------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:57:05 +0100
From: Joshue O Connor <joshue.oconnor at ncbi.ie>
Subject: [CEUD-ICT] Captions, subtitles in HTML 5
To: "'Centre for Excellence in Universal Design ICT mailing list'"
	<ceud-ict at list.universaldesign.ie>
Message-ID: <4A72B1E1.9050301 at ncbi.ie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi all,

Are you interested in the future of video on the web? If so have a look
at the following.
Silvia Pfeiffer is doing some very interesting work for Mozilla on
finding the best way to include
captions, subtitles, textual audio annotations, and other time-aligned
text with the HTML5 video element.

The following is an experiment with external srt files that relate to an
Ogg Theora video. [1] [2]

See the demo: http://www.annodex.net/~silvia/itext/.

It uses aria-live regions, so it would be interesting to hear from
screen reader users. Please CC Silvia on any feedback, bugs, thoughts
etc at silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com.

Thanks

Josh

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_Theora

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------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:59:36 +0100
From: Mark Magennis <Mark.magennis at ncbi.ie>
Subject: Re: [CEUD-ICT] Official Driver Theory Test DVD
To: Centre for Excellence in Universal Design ICT mailing list
	<ceud-ict at list.universaldesign.ie>
Message-ID: <382BC12A-D06D-4E44-874E-2DF11C394A5D at ncbi.ie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed; delsp=yes

Hi Antoinette,

Good on you for challenging this. As you say, as a public body RSA  
should be making maximum efforts to be inclusive. I second D?nal's  
comment about the argument conflating the ability to read text on a  
screen with the ability to see other cars and road signs. That's  
completely spurious. At my age I can hardly read a standard business  
card any more, but I can still pick out individual fleas on the sheep  
on yonder hillside.

The thing that gets me is the statement "in a multimedia application  
like ours, where the layout of the screen needs to be precisely  
controlled". That statement may be questionable. The need for precise  
control over screen layout is rarely due to the functionality of an  
application. More usually it's either a restriction imposed by the  
tools used to create the application or it's the designer's wish to  
impose their design preferences on users. I don't know much about how  
these multimedia applications are created, but it may well be that the  
software they've used produces code that doesn't allow for user  
configurable layout. Much the same way some web content management  
systems automatically layout everything using tables. They may have no  
control over that, other than using different a development tool (i.e.  
a more suitable one). The wish of the designer to control the way  
things look on the screen may be due to their own aesthetic  
sensibilities or their lack of knowledge of how to create flexible  
designs. Designers often want to impose their own preferences for how  
something should appear rather than allowing users to impose their  
preferences, which will vary. They may think they know best, which is  
a little misguided.

I'm not familiar with this DVD and what it does, so it may actually be  
the case that a specific screen layout IS required for the  
functionality to work properly. That may be what they mean by it being  
a "layout-sensitive application".  Though I would be surprised if that  
were the case.

So when they say it's "impossible to properly arrange the screens so  
that they work for both normal fonts users and those using large  
fonts", do they mean:

* impossible because of the subject matter and functionality;
* impossible using our application development tools;
* impossible because we don't know how to do those kinds of designs;
* or just impossible because it would look awful and we've used a lot  
of effort and talent in making it look nice?

Maybe you might ask them that question?

Mark

P.S. I don't really understand their last statement "It does NOT mean  
that the fonts in the application are going to be too small to be  
read". Is this guy calling you a liar?

On 30 Jul 2009, at 10:11, Antoinette Fennell wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> A personal ICT query, if you don't mind, with regard to accessibility.
>
> I recently purchased the Official Driver Theory test DVD from the Road
> Safety Authority, and the DVD would not run on my computer as I have  
> the
> settings in Large Font mode.
>
> A message appeared which said "You are currently running in large  
> fonts
> mode. Unfortunately, the official driver theory test (in common with  
> many
> other multimedia titles) cannot run effectively in large fonts mode.  
> In
> order to run this software you will need to manually change the  
> settings to
> "small font" mode. To do this, proceed as follows: .........."
>
> When I changed the settigns to small font mode, I lost all of the
> personalised changes I had made on my computer (icon size, icon  
> label size,
> menu label size etc.), all of which have to be set manually.
>
> I emailed the RSA and received the following reply:
>
> "The engine that we developed for this product has ALWAYS required  
> the user
> to be in "Normal Fonts" mode. The fact is that the fonts used in the  
> product
> ARE larger than average. The reason that we require the software to  
> be in
> "Normal Fonts" mode isn't because we want to make the fonts smaller  
> (we
> could do that in large fonts mode simply by making the fonts smaller  
> to
> compensate!), it's because we want accurate control over the size of  
> the
> fonts.  In large fonts mode, Windows automatically boosts the size  
> of the
> font on buttons, labels, edit boxes etc (not by making the point  
> size larger
> (say from 8pt to 10 pt), but by drawing an 8pt font larger on screen  
> than
> usual...  For most applications, this causes SOME problems (text  
> overflowing
> buttons for example), but in a multimedia application like ours,  
> where the
> layout of the screen needs to be precisely controlled, it is a  
> disaster -
> making it impossible to properly arrange the screens so that they  
> work for
> both normal fonts users (who are the majority - especially of  
> drivers who
> are required in law to have a certain acuity of eyesight) and those  
> using
> large fonts (who are in the minority). We therefore took the view  
> that we
> would design the screen layouts  in "normal fonts" mode and insist /  
> warn
> our users that they needed to be in the same mode, to ensure that  
> they see
> what we intended them to see. I realise that this seems odd - but  
> the way
> that Windows implements "large fonts" is that it simply changes the  
> DPI
> (dots per inch) setting for the computer  and in a layout-sensitive
> application, this simply doesn't work very well.  It does NOT mean  
> that the
> fonts in the application are going to be too small to be read."
>
>
> So in order to use the DVD, you have to sacrifice your personalised
> settings. I personally amn't happy with this response, but I know  
> nothing
> about software development, so can't say whether or not an  
> alternative could
> be easily developed.
>
> Considering that the RSA is a public body, is the developers response
> acceptable? Any advice that can be sent to the software developer to  
> solve
> this issue?
>
>
> All the best,
>
> Antoinette
>
>
>
> _________________
>
> Dr Antoinette Fennell
>
> Research Fellow - Project Scientist - Universal Design
>
> TrinityHaus
>
> McNamara Centre for Construction Innovation and Sustainability
>
> Trinity College Dublin
>
> Dublin 2
>
> Ireland
>
> Tel: +353 (0)1 896 3720
>
> Email: antoinette.fennell at tcd.ie
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CEUD-ICT mailing list
> CEUD-ICT at list.universaldesign.ie
> http://list.universaldesign.ie/mailman/listinfo/ceud-ict
>

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NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated 
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it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are 
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Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email 
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