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Re: Dragon Naturally Speaking - "Click Close"

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From: deblist@suberic.net
Date: Jan 4, 2010 7:09AM


On Mon, 4 Jan 2010, Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> Interestingly, my colleagues, who work with DNS, are uncertain what happens if there only appears to be one button in the window. Typically, if there appears to be one button, they just say the button's name, like "click Close." In fact, they have closed browser windows unintentionally a few times by saying "click Close."

as a DNS user, I usually make use of third-party tools (such as
the Firefox Mouseless Browsing extension) to provide this
functionality. Frankly,NaturallySpeaking + existing browser
technologies aren't yet adequate to make this reliable, not just
because of the "click close" behavior you are discussing, but
because the odds of Dragon NaturallySpeaking mishearing the name
of the button are just too high.

I would lay bets that not one of the developers here, each of
whom cares very much about designing accessible webpages, worries
about making link and button names that aren't near homophones of
each other. (Nor should you all, except in as much if things need
to be comprehensible to screen reader users.) It's more reliable
just to stick a unique number next to every clickable item (which
is what Mouseless Browsing does) than to rely on NaturallySpeaking
correctly identifying the name of the button clicked.

-Deborah