[LAU] Music Editors for Blind Users?

[Janina Sajka]

Paul Davis writes:
> Your post was very long and my response will not directly address what you
> wrote. I am quoting something I wrote a couple of years ago about
> interfaces for this blind people. It makes a single but I think critical
> point.
> 
> -------------
> 
> years ago someone paid me to do a text-based UI for ardour. it was centered
> on very efficient use of the keyboard and using a screen-reader.
> 
> the code probably still exists. i don't think it was very successful,
> partly for the reasons identified in the text you sent. but i think there
> is a more important reason.
> 
> working with audio tends to involve the use of the screen to act as a kind
> of memory. there are a ton of parameters in play, and its a huge barrier if
> you constantly need to remember what they are all set to. the 2d expanse of
> the screen represents a kind of 2nd level cache of this information, where
> a sighted person can simply glance around and discover what they need to
> know about the current state of things.
> 
> reproducing this functionality without the information-dense medium that
> the screen represents is a HUGE challenge. i've thought about it on and off
> every since the "ksi" interface for ardour was done. i have no ideas on how
> anyone could make progress on this. i think its a very interesting, very,
> very hard problem. i have no time to work on it.
> 
If you are in a position to rely on the screen, you have no reason to
become adept at remembering all those details. The converse also holds.

It's the same learning a score to play from memory, vs knowing that you
will always be able to rely on a printed score on the music stand, i.e.
it's not about the ability to see, but about the operational
sassumptions.


Concert pianists (and other concert soloists) memorize concertos. Chamber players tend to play from
scores, as do vocal accompanyists.


PS: The problems I had with the keyboard interface to Ardour was that it
didn't work in any packaged version I was able to install. Ideally, any
such command input overlay would persist as the underlying application
is versioned up. But, as I recall, your work was outside of any a11y
supporting framework, so was probably bound encounter problems.

> as a practical note, if someone wants to do something like this, it would
> obviously be quite likely that basing their efforts on an open source tool
> is likely to offer a lot of possibilities that are simply not available
> when using closed source tools.
> 
Well, the blind musicians community appears to be pretty happy with Avid
products just now, specifically ProTools v. 11 and up.

It's regretable that desktop F/OSS has underperformed for AT users,
especially as the successful API-based approach was first developed on
F/OSS. Linux might have enjoyed "first out of the box a11y support" on
the desktop, but never got it quite together, so that bragging point
went to Apple.

Then there's the pulseaudio travesty which was foisted into Linux
without a11y requirements considerations. One could go on and on.

Janina

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-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/