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Re: AT problems after upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010?

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From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Oct 27, 2010 10:36PM


Cliff Tyllick wrote:

> But the problem is that we sighted folks assumed that people who can't see have all of those combinations memorized -- but they don't. What they had memorized, by and large, was the combination that exposed the Styles menu, the combination that exposed the File menu, and so forth.

It's not just blind users! As a voice user, all of the combinations I knew to say "[menu] pause [command]" are lost now. I am utterly lost in Office 2007, and I was a power user in previous versions.

I know plenty of people who are able-bodied who've had the same experience, to be honest. Changing a UI for which many people are power users so drastically will be confusing. The menu-to-ribbon transition seems to have been a universal design failure in many ways, given how thoroughly it confused many users.

> One nice thing about Office 2007 and 2010 is that when you press the "Alt" key, the key that exposes a tab is displayed in a little white box over the respective tab.

This seems to confuse NaturallySpeaking in certain circumstance, sadly. D:

-Deborah