Author Archives: Kim

UC Exchange


The UC Exchange Wiki is up! Check it out (say “UC Exchange”). Over the coming months you’ll see pages on specific applications with advice on how to apply UC to those programs, including step-by-step tours. 

Research Watch: What you see changes what you hear


Who says looks don’t matter?

It looks like what you see changes what you hear. Researchers from Haskins Laboratories and MIT have found that different facial expressions alter the sounds we hear.

This shows that the somatosensory system — the mix of senses and brain filtering that determines how you perceive your body — is involved when you process speech.

This doesn’t have a whole lot to do with speech commands except to show that it’s easy to underestimate the complexity, and subtlety, of our perception of spoken language.

Resources:

Somatosensory function in speech perception
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0810063106

Tip: Naming a mouse click


We're getting some good feedback from people who are speeding themselves up in all kinds of situations using UC's naming a mouse click ability. We didn't anticipate some of the ways people are using this ability. I'll detail these in a future post.

Here's how to name a mouse click:

1. Position the mouse using the mouse rulers commands on something you regularly click and can't get to any other way, for instance the Indent button in Google documents, e.g. "50 By 10"

2. When you've got the mouse exactly where you want it, say "Add Touch" to call up the UC list dialog box with the coordinates entered

3. Add a name for the coordinates, e.g. "Indent"

4. say "Enter" to put the new command on the Touch list (at this point you can repeat steps 1-4 to add more commands).

5. say "Window Close · Yes" to close the UC List dialog box, and restart NatSpeak

 

Now you can say "Indent Touch" to click the Google Documents Indent button.

 

Things really heat up when you use the naming a mouse click ability to click twice using a single speech command.

Let me know how you're using the mouse click ability by commenting here, on the Web site comment form (say "UC Make"), or sending e-mail to info@ this website address.

Tip: make sure to export your lists to back them up (say "UC List Export").

Note: some early prerelease copies of Utter Command don't contain the naming the mouse click utility. It'll be available in the general release, and all prerelease customers will get a copy of the general release when it comes out. If you're a prerelease customer and would like an upgrade before the general release, please contact us.

ATIA and training


The Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) 2009 Orlando show starts this week. We’ll be doing a poster session at the show (come see us Thursday, 3:30 to 5:30 in the Front Hall).

 

As part of ATIA we’re offering free Utter Command training sessions to the first 50 people who buy Utter Command during the show, which ends Saturday. UC training includes an assessment, custom lesson plan and remote training session. We use GoToMeeting for the remote training session. GoToMeeting lets you share what’s on your computer screen over the Internet, so we can see your screen and you can see ours.

Tip: Speedy Attaching with the Message Paste command


Say you’re in Windows Explorer or an Open dialog box where the files you want to add to a future e-mail message reside. You could open up your e-mail program and use the attach utility to attach files, or, since you’re already right there with the files, you could speed things up this way:

To attach files to a new e-mail message starting from Windows Explorer or an open dialog box:

  1. select the files you want to attach, by saying, for instance “3 Downs” (see UC Lesson 5.5 for instructions on selecting noncontiguous files by speech)
  2. say “This Copy”
  3. say “Thunderbird Message Paste” (or Outlook, Express or Eudora, depending on the e-mail you use)


And there you have it, a new e-mail message with files attached.


Keyboard shortcuts: naming, sharing and seeing

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The way we control computer programs is fairly inefficient.

Keyboard shortcuts are underused in favor of using a mouse to click through menus. This is short-term practical — it takes less thought to browse through menus than to remember a keyboard shortcut. But it’s not very productive.

Look at the whole picture and you find good reasons to make the less productive choice. There are barriers to using keyboard shortcuts. Help and learning tools for keyboard shortcuts are scant at best. And inconsistencies across programs make the learning task larger.

So how do we improve things?

We can (continue to) encourage software makers to improve keyboard shortcut documentation and consistency. This is important, but it’s not going to change the world.

I think things would improve greatly given universal abilities to

1. name our own keyboard shortcuts — this currently exists in some but not all programs
2. share sets of shortcuts
3. see all shortcuts for a given application, and even compare shortcuts across applications

This would provide a good mental map of functionality — both of individual programs and across the landscape of suites.

It would make efficient functionality accessible across the board. It would enable individuals, organizations, departments or corporations to make applications more efficient and even standardize shortcuts across applications. The ability to share shortcuts would put a lot of brains on the problem and make the process efficient and evolutionary.

Given a map of all shortcuts, you could make things even better by allowing the user to mark the map — maybe using color labels.

Tools like this are the equivalent of a downhill groove for water– it would make it easy to be more efficient.

Keyboard shortcuts are least standard and most lacking in Internet applications. I’m thinking an ability like this could be built into or be an add-on to a browser.

And in addition to increasing productivity across the board, keyboard shortcuts are central to accessibility. The blind community relies on keyboard shortcuts. And speech commands often tap keyboard shortcuts — they’re often the hooks people use to write custom macros, and Utter Command allows you to speak and combine keys including keyboard shortcuts.

So who’s going to step up to the plate?

Friday Tip: Cutting and pasting from the Web


I’ve been asking people two questions lately:

1. What tasks do you do the most on your computer?

2. What tasks are frustrating to do by speech?

Cutting and pasting from the Web comes up frequently in both categories, and the frustration lies in selecting text from the Web.

When it comes to selecting text from the Web there’s good news and not so good news. The good news is that it’s easy to select in Firefox. The not so good news is selecting is not as easy as it should be in Internet Explorer.

Selecting text in Firefox

In Firefox you can use the same selection commands you’d use in any program. There’s a trick, however.

The Caret Browsing hotkey — “Function 7” — toggles text navigation commands like “3 Down” and “Go Home” from acting on the text to acting on the scroll bar. If you’re clicked into a text field, you’ll see the cursor appear and disappear when you say “Function 7”. When you can see the cursor, caret browsing is on and you should be able to move the cursor in text.

To see this say

“New York Times Site” to bring up your default browser (should be Firefox) to the New York Times site

“10 By 30” to click somewhere in a text field — adjust the numbers of necessary

“2 Down” to move the scroll bar up and down (by default)

“Function 7” to toggle Caret Browsing hotkey

“2 Down” to move the insertion point in text

Once you have the insertion point where you want it, you can use regular selection commands like “1-100 Lefts/Rights/Befores/Afters/Ups/Downs/Lines/Line Ups…” commands to select precisely.

So if you wanted to move the insertion point to the beginning of a line a couple of lines down, then select the next three lines plus the first two words on a fourth line, you’d say, “2 Down Home”, “3 Lines · 2 Afters”.

Selecting text in Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer, you can select text using the Shift mouse method (you can use this in Firefox too, but the above method is generally easier).

Say, for instance, “10 By 40” to click at the beginning of the selection, then, for instance, “40 By 60 Shift Touch” to select from the beginning coordinates to the new coordinates. If you want to adjust the selection, say the second command again with different numbers.

Copying and pasting

Once you have something selected in either program you can copy and paste by saying a copy command like “Copy to Word” or “Copy to Window 1”.

Your tasks

I’d like to know what tasks you do the most on your computer and what tasks are frustrating using speech — let me know and chances are I’ll find a way to speed you up.

Gravity on the Web

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Computer commands of all kinds — speech, keyboard and mouse — are much easier to use when they’re consistent across programs.

At the base level, it’s important that common elements like drop-down menus act the same. You control drop-down menus without thinking — click on an element or use the Left, Right, Up, Down and Enter keys.

Consistent commands are the real-world equivalent of having the same gravity in every room, or keys turning the same way to unlock.

Web applications are looking more and more like standard computer programs, but sometimes the elements that look familiar don’t act the way we’re used to. Drop-down menus usually respond in a familiar way to the mouse, but often don’t respond to the Up, Down and Enter keys.

But perhaps things are getting better.

The first drop-down menus to show up on Google Docs didn’t respond to Left, Right, Up, Down and Enter. Then most of the folder-view drop-down menus were arrow key/Enter enabled, but not document menus. A few months ago document menus changed from looking tab-like to looking more menu like, but still didn’t respond to arrow keys and Enter. Then, sometime in the last few weeks, the Doc menus were arrow key/Enter enabled (the change didn’t show up on the update notice).

The keyboard shortcuts enable better speech navigation as well. I can say, for instance, “3 Down Enter” to choose an item in an open menu, “3 Down 2 Right Enter” to choose a color on the open color menu, or “7 Right Wait 3” to take a three-second peak at each of the seven successive menus starting with the file menu open.

This is a great trend.

Now all we need is keyboard shortcuts to open the menus in the first place. We also need the same kind of control in all Web applications, including Google spreadsheets.

Friday Tip: Remembering boilerplate and vocabulary commands

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NatSpeak boilerplate Text and Graphics commands allow you to insert any text or graphics into a document using a single speech command. These commands can be very powerful — they’re good for adding text and graphics that you use often, such as your address or a set of directions.

The NatSpeak Vocabulary editor allows you to add words or phrases to your vocabulary that have different spoken and written forms. This allows you to make words like your email address easily pronounceable.

The key to using boilerplate and vocabulary commands is being able to remember them.

There are two ways to make these types of commands easy to remember:

1. Word them consistently

2. Make them easy to look up

I find the easiest way to remember boilerplate Text and Graphics commands is to simply say the first part of the text you’re inserting followed by “Full”. So “Redstart Full” prints the full name and address of Redstart Systems. If you have two different versions of the address, add a number. “Redstart Full 1” prints the same address in a different format.

You can use the Utter Command Clipboard facility to make anything easy to look up. Once you name your Text and Graphics command say “Line Copy To” followed by the name of the UC Clipboard file and you’ve got it recorded. For example, to keep your boilerplate commands in “UC List 1” say “Line Copy To List 1”.

Now any time you want to consult your list of commands say “List 1 File”. You can also print it out.

I also use the start-to-say method for vocabulary words that have different written and spoken forms. I’ve put my Redstart email address in as a vocabulary word with the spoken form “Kim at Red” and my Gmail address in as a vocabulary word with the spoken form “Kim at G Mail” (in address commands I use “Kim” whether or not the actual address is just Kim or something longer).

One caution in using vocabulary in this way — make sure commands are at least two words and make sure the two words are not a common phrase that you’d want to say as is. If you need to, use the “Full” method above to avoid this problem. Also make sure to save your user after adding vocabulary words.

If you wish, keep vocabulary words that have different written and spoken forms on the same list as your boilerplate commands.

The difference between boilerplate commands and written/spoken vocabulary words is a block of boilerplate is returned exactly as written, while vocabulary commands are treated like words, with appropriate spacing before and after them.

UC Commands Tip: say “NatSpeak” followed by the first one or two words in a NatSpeak dialog box title to call up that dialog box.

Commands for the dialog boxes mentioned above:

“NatSpeak My Commands” calls up the NatSpeak My Commands dialog box where you can write a boilerplate Text and Graphics macro

“NatSpeak Vocabulary” calls up the NatSpeak Vocabulary Editor dialog box

Friday Tip: Getting back to where you were on the Web

Question: when you’re looking for a website you’ve been to before, but haven’t put it on your UC List or in your bookmarks, what’s the fastest way to get back to it?

I’ve got a two-step solution for you, assuming you’re starting in an open browser. It works the same in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

1. Combine the command that puts the cursor in the address bar with the first two letters of whatever you’re looking for. If I’m looking for the Evite site, for instance for instance, I would say “Under Delta e v”

2. If the first choice is what you want say “Down Enter” to finish the job, if it’s the second choice “2 Down Enter” etc.