ChromeVox update thoughts

[Kevin Chao]

wow! @GoogleAccess #ChromeVox new keyboard commands are confusing,
browser/ext very unstable, cannot turn off keyboard echo, & UX is
awful.
So if you press command+l to enter a web address, chrome box doesn't
read that either? Not good.
I think the new dash and equals commands are pretty inconvenient.
There needs to be a toggle key to turn chrome box on and off with one keystroke.
It is frustrating to have to turn VO on to use bookmarks or menus.

Kevin

[Kevin Chao]

#ChromeVox from @GoogleAccess is such a flop/fail. it constantly
crashes/freezes and brings Chrome with it. cannot use at all!
without fail. regardless of @GoogleChroem 16 beta or 17 Canary.
#ChromeVox will crash. horrible! @googleaccess

Kevin

[pitermach]

Kevin, I think you're being a little harsh, especially on the follow up
message you wrote saying that cv is a flop.
That said, I do wonder why chromevox used to read chrome menus and
dialogs and doesn't now, ditto for chrome:// URL's. Am I correct in
assuming those had to be disabled due to security restrictions on the
web store?

On 11/23/2011 5:43 AM, Kevin Chao wrote:
> wow! @GoogleAccess #ChromeVox new keyboard commands are confusing,

> browser/ext very unstable, cannot turn off keyboard echo,& UX is

[Alex H.News]

Well, cv is very crashy and doest read in menus, and for it to actually. Be used for more than just a toy, it shiuld not crash all the time. The while concept iof cv is that. It is lite and fast, efficient to use on a cbook and in the chrime browser. Not so if it crashes as much as it does...

Alex
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Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[rshearer]

Regarding the crashes:

I'm sorry to hear that ChromeVox is crashing for some of you :( It would be really helpful if you could describe what is happening when ChromeVox crashes. Does it stop talking, but the browser is still active? Does a dialog appear that says ChromeVox has crashed? Or does it bring Chrome down with it?

If it is bringing Chrome down with it, it would be awesome if you could give us the crash IDs (if you've enabled crash reporting). Can you go to chrome://crashes and see if your crashes are listed? The crash IDs can help us figure out what the problem is. To enable crash reporting, go to chrome://settings/advanced and select 'Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google' (Note that if this setting was not already enabled, you'll need to reproduce the crash first in order to get an ID).

If you don't want to enable crash reporting, there are other ways to submit crash data. There's more info here:https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/for-testers/bug-reporting-guidelines/reporting-crash-bug .

[rshearer]

Regarding ChromeVox not speaking menus anymore:

It's true that before ChromeVox was released to the web store, some users could get ChromeVox to speak the "chrome of Chrome", like Chrome interface menus and buttons. But going forward, ChromeVox will only speak web content. You'll have to use your existing screen reader to interact with the Chrome interface and special chrome:// URLs which ChromeVox can't access due to extension security restrictions. 

Right now, ChromeVox should "just work" with JAWS. If you're using VoiceOver, you can turn VoiceOver off (Command + F5 again) when you want to use ChromeVox to hear web content, and turn VoiceOver back on (using Command + F5) when you want to hear the Chrome interface.

If you want to turn ChromeVox off, use your existing screen reader to access the chrome://extensions Extensions management page and uncheck the "Enabled" checkbox.

Keep in mind that ChromeVox is still very much in BETA. We're actively working on getting ChromeVox to interact smoothly with screen readers, and we really want feedback on your experiences (good or bad) and how this process works for you.

[Kevin Chao]

ChroemVox should be able to either:
1) Read, navigate, and interact with menus, Chroem Web Store,
preferences, secured pages, etc.
2) Have tight integration and work seamlessly with Mac Voiceover and
NVDA, just like it does with JAWS.

There needs to be a keyboard shortcut to toggle on/off ChromeVox

Kevin

[pitermach]

There are a few major issues with this approach,. First and foremost, not every screen reader can interact with Chrome's web content. While I have no problems with NVDA, I do see users of earlier jaws releases and window-eyes, and I believe Voice Over, to have issues. This effectively leaves people unable to change any settings or even download files.
You are suggesting that the screen reader be turned off. This would work,except what about the alerts, IE, when remembering passwords, or translating pages? Or even typing in addresses? not everyone feels confident enough to have no speech output in a text field, especially beginner users. And windows screen readers aren't as easy to just flip on and off as Voice Over is.
Since it seems this is a restriction brought about the web store, and it used to be possible, I say have 2 builds. 1 in the store, and another with the menu reading enabled, that's be installed as before by downloading the file manually. This is what the developers of SkipScreen do on FFirefox, they have an official release up in the extension page of Mozilla, and a private one that has Captcha solving capabilities which apparently couldn't be put there due to guidelines. IMO what you're doing now is just taking the project back instead of forwards, sacrificing such crucial functionality is... hmm.yeah

[pitermach]

Replying to my previous message. I just spoke to a friend and he pointed out something else worth considering. Chromium users are not disadvantaged this way. Chromevox reads everything for them.. Which actually also makes me realize, chromium users don't need to install any additional extensions. So, why couldn't Chromevox be built into the browser? or have a checkbox in the installer that'd say something like, I am visually impaired and require speech output that'd automatically install the extension without the very stupid setbacks due to the web store?
This would once again help new users which may not be aware of this (CV is developped by Google, yet it's not mentioned at all on the browser's page, even though something like Voiceover is on apple's list of built-in Mac OS and iPhone features.

[Kevin Chao]

I think that the various crashes/instability may exist on Windows side (I and several others on Windows 7 have noticed lots of instability/crashes with Chrome/ChromeVox) and may be better on Mac OS X.

However, in order to really know if this is true or not, which will benefit Google accessibility greatly. Piter, David, Mike, and Richard: What OS&version and Chrome web browser&version are you all using?

Have any of you attempted to reproduce the crashes I reported on ChromeVox bug tracker, which automatically sends a copy to this list? If you can/cannot reproduce it, please do comment within the tracker/ticket, which will allow Google to have more data/metrics.

Sent from my iPhone

[Richard Chapman]

Hi Kevin - Richard here - and I have reported no crashes with the new
chromevox.
My OS is Windows 7 64 bit SP1
Google Chrome version 15.0.874.121.

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Richard Chapman