[jawsscripts] Sharing suggestions I sent to Mozilla developers

From: Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
To: blind-mozilla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:29:03 -0500
-- Forwarded Message --
From: Jamal Mazrui
Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 11:59 AM
To: dev-accessibility@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Suggestions for developers of Thunderbird and other Mozilla apps

I have learned as much as possible about Thunderbird 3.0 from various 
sources on the web, and have developed a set of JAWS scripts to improve 
its usability for people who operate with that screen reader, available 
with an executable installer at

http://EmpowermentZone.com/tb_scr.exe

or with a zip archive for a manual install (currently needed for Win64) at
http://EmpowermentZone.com/tb_scr.zip

The following is a set of suggestions that I hope Mozilla developers can 
implement in the next version of Thunderbird.  If it is better to 
include such suggestions within the Bugzilla tracking system, I hope 
someone familiar with that system can help transfer them accordingly.

In general, TB3 meets a minimum baseline of accessibility in terms of 
keyboard operability and screen reader output via MSAA.  Much can be 
done, however, to make the screen reader experience more efficient and 
smooth.

* Include all relevant controls in the navigation sequence of dialogs.
In particular, make the Add button focusable in the subdialog of Account 
Settings after one chooses the Actions button.

* Include a keyboard way of changing the sequence of columns in the 
message list.  Currently, this can only be done with mouse drag-and-drop 
operations.

   * Include hotkeys to go directly to common folders, including Inbox, 
Sent, Trash, and Junk.  My scripts try to implement Control+Shift+Letter 
combinations for this, e.g., Control+Shift+I for Inbox.  The scripts use 
the JAWS off screen model (OSM) to find the folder name, route the mouse 
pointer to it, and then click.  This works sometimes but is not reliable 
because the folder name is not always visible, or the word appears in 
another context than being the clickable folder name.

* Use a delimiter character other than a space to seperate columnar data 
in the MSAA AccName property of a message list item.  It is difficult to 
reliably parse out, say, the subject from the sender from the recipient 
of a message when only spaces seperate each data item.  I suggest a Tab 
character as a delimiter (\t).



* Ensure that all relevant message status information is available in 
MSAA properties.  For example, attachment data is not currently 
available via MSAA.

* In message composition mode, use seperate edit controls for the To, 
CC, and BCC fields.  Currently, one control is used with a preceding 
ComboBox to select whether To, CC, or BCC, is applicable.  This 
arrangement is quite inefficient from a keyboard standpoint.  Much 
better would be seperate controls with initial letter hotkeys, e.g.,
Alt+T for the To field, Alt+C for the CC field, and Alt+B for the BCC
field.  Alt+S does currently work for focusing on the Subject field.  My 
scripts also try to implement Alt+M for the message body.

* Avoid using the same hotke for completely different tasks.  For 
example, F7 is currently used for caret-browsing mode when reading a 
message, and for the spell checker when writing a message.

* Prevent Control+W from exiting the application.  Currently, one can 
inadvertently exit Thunderbird by pressing Control+W to close a message 
when only one tab is open.

* Include quality documentation with Thunderbird, e.g., available from 
the Help menu and with the F1 key.  The lack of TB documentation is a 
usability barrier generally, and an accessibility barrier to people with 
disabilities.  A visually obvious behavior of the application may be 
completely unknown to us without documentation that describes how the 
program responds in a given context to input events or setting changes.
Also include a Help button in the Account Settings and Options dialogs 
(like Firefox has).

I hope these suggestions are helpful in a team effort to make 
Thunderbird and other Mozilla applications more productive to users with 
disabilities.

Regards,
Jamal
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[jawsscripts] Sharing suggestions I sent to Mozilla developers

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