Wiki information for the visually impaired volunteer

Post your questions & get help from friendly LibriVoxers
bart
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 7618
Joined: February 16th, 2009, 9:17 am
Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands
Contact:

Post by bart »

More and more volunteers are visually impaired.
We are aware that for these people LibriVox doesn’t offer the best of working environments, and we have decided to do something about it.
In the last few months we have learned that some of our visually impaired LibriVoxers cope very well, so we would like to make a wiki-page to bundle all solutions to the problems visually impaired people can encounter.
And we need your help to make that wiki-page.

Are you visually impaired?
If so, could you please send all information you think is interesting for other visually impaired persons?
We are especially interested in:
  • prooflistening (how to tell the time)
  • reading (issues with braillemachine - clicking!, how to edit your own stuff)
  • BC'ing (accessing the magic window)
  • Software (do you use special software for one of the tasks?)
Since I’m not visually impaired, it’s difficult for me to make a complete list, so feel free to add more information if you think it’s appropriate.

You can send your information to me by posting it in this thread, but you can also send it to me by PM.
I hope to receive lots of information!

Bart
miss stav
Posts: 16482
Joined: October 4th, 2007, 5:25 pm
Location: Israel

Post by miss stav »

I have another problem: tecnical settings of recordings. I don't know how to discover if they are correct or not.
Love gothic novels? Try Children Of The Abbey. Like surprising mysteries? Try The Amathist Cross. Looking for an easy read? Try Harriet's Choice.
WYSIWYG
Posts: 959
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 8:51 am
Location: Mansfield, PA, USA

Post by WYSIWYG »

My own particular vision impairments are partly permanent and partly remediable with glasses. I do not have anything to share right now on:

* prooflistening (how to tell the time)
* reading (issues with braillemachine - clicking!, how to edit your own stuff)
* BC'ing (accessing the magic window)
* Software (do you use special software for one of the tasks?)

What I CAN share is that Librivox is already a unique and valued community in the way it responds to me without even knowing just what my issues are-- I have had many helpful forum posts and PMs directing my attention to things I'm trying to find/do within Librivox.

The result has been that each time, I learn my way around, better, with very little attrition to the day's vision resources.

An optometrist told me many years ago that GOOD vision occupies 25% of the brain's resources, on average. Poor vision taxes the brain much further as it tries to take in the incoming sensory data thru the optic nerve, process it, and interpret it. The numbers are probably off (due to newer research), but the concept stands and I experience it every day.


All I really need from site design and features is that Librivox continue to use clear and simple page layouts, sparing use of colors, etc., to guide the eyes to the part of the page I need to click. From there, my browser tools (Firefox) serve me pretty well.


Librivox users may not be your best focus group. You might want to ask some blind-association-type folks to take this on as a student project-- Lord knows they should be highly interested in using and supporting Librivox, and eager to offer ideas to make it more useful to them.

In any event-- thanks to Librivox, top to bottom, side to side.

~Susan
Vision issues and routine, long travel make audbiobooks a MUST for me-- THANK YOU. Apologies in advance for ypto's in my posts.
jeanny
Posts: 773
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 9:24 am

Post by jeanny »

miss stav wrote:I have another problem: tecnical settings of recordings. I don't know how to discover if they are correct or not.
Hi Miss Stav,
I have the same problem as you describe. I'm still looking for a recording software which is accessible with the keyboard. As far as I know, the 1.3.x beta versions of Audacity have much improved in this aspect, but you still can#t manage all the settings.
Is there anyone who records for LibriVox and uses a screen reader software who could recommend a recording program?
I've received an email in a mailing list which was very promising. A programer (blind himself) offered his recording software for free download, but right now it does not support all LibriVox requirements (i.e. mono recordings). The programer is going to sell a commercial version with a new free mode, which includes these settings.

LibriVox is one of the most accessible websites I ever encountered in the world wide web, and if there are some problems, you get great help in the community! :)
miss stav
Posts: 16482
Joined: October 4th, 2007, 5:25 pm
Location: Israel

Post by miss stav »

Librivox is very excessable. People here help me a lot. I am blind. Are you also blind, Jeany?
Love gothic novels? Try Children Of The Abbey. Like surprising mysteries? Try The Amathist Cross. Looking for an easy read? Try Harriet's Choice.
jeanny
Posts: 773
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 9:24 am

Post by jeanny »

miss stav wrote:Librivox is very excessable. People here help me a lot. I am blind. Are you also blind, Jeany?
Yes, I'm also blind.

I was told you do some great BC'ing work for LibriVox. I'd like to BC some projects for LibriVox after I've done some more PL'ing. Would you mind sending me a PM about your experience in that field of LibriVox? :wink:
I'd be very glad about your help.
Sandra7
Posts: 479
Joined: April 6th, 2010, 2:32 pm
Location: Sopranoland

Post by Sandra7 »

Hello guys, what a great page! Bart sent me a pm so I'm adding my tuppence worth.

pling and how to tell the time. Well I give the sentence as context and use a stopwatch on the Braillenote to give a rough idea. If I can't access the stopwatch, (because Im reading along with the reader), I'll say something like, about five minutes in you said bla instead of bla. It works fine by and large. I know there is a way of making Jaws announce the time but it is very very very long-winded.

Braille machine clicking eh? That one's my fault I think. The only way to minimise that one is to have the microphone on one level and the Braillenote on another. IE, mic on a table, Braillenote on your lap. RuthieG is very good at editing out noises like that especially if there's a noise profile. Read up and down with the advance bars for half a minute and that should do it. When I can, I get a hard copy of the book I'm recording, that is to say, a Braille book. Of course that still leaves page turns to edit out but they are more infrequent.

How do I edit? Ha. I don't. I use a few keystrokes for deleting but I'm not great. If any of you want to delete things the series of keystrokes is as follows:
get to the point at which you want to start axing, press p to pause, left bracket, (the one to the right of p), the space bar, press space again till you hear the end of the section you want to get rid of, press p again, right bracket, (two to the right of p), space, and last but not least, control k. As I said, I'm not terribly good at that and I ask other volunteers to help me with the finer details, (amplifying, little pauses, noise cleaning etc), and they claim sections to edit from my solo projects via the magic window, which leads me to my next point.

The magic window is something of an inigma. Sometimes it behaves perfectly for me and I can write remes in the various edit fields. At other times, I can't get it to change a thing. I can input urls, add readers, put in chapter titles. The hit and miss part is the notes edit field, which is, ironically, the most reliable bit when saving as it saves seperately, something to do with the enter key.

Hope some or all of this is helpful. Librivox is fantastic and very accessible. The sticking point I had was registering. I needed sighted aid to do that, no two ways about it. Oh yes I almost forgot, how to tell the recording settings. There should be a dialogue box in audacity, the preference page which lists everything you do and don't need to know.

All the best,
Sandra.
Buechermaus
Posts: 214
Joined: July 12th, 2006, 6:37 am
Location: Cologne, Germany

Post by Buechermaus »

Hello everyone,
@Bart: Thanks for telling me about this page! First of all: I agree that LibriVox is highly accessible and there are so many nice and helpfull people around! Here are my ways of using LV:I am blind and have tried LV with different systems and screenreaders.
Prooflistening (How to tell the time): So far I have used winamp under Windows and mplayer under Linux for pling. In winamp I pause by pressing space and then strg+j [English keyboard: ctrl+j] to find out the lenght of the file and my current position in it. Then I press esc and space to go on listening after I made my notes (Either in Wordpad or directly into the Magic window).
In mplayer you can see the total and current time whenever you pause with space.

The magic window works OK under windows with Jaws, Windoweyes and NVDA as screenreaders. But with my version of Orca (which goes with Debian) under Linux it does not work at all and crashes the system completely. Does anyone have an idea how to use the magic window with Linux?

If you want more detailed information about LV and the different screenreaders I'll gladly provide it!
All the best
Buechermaus
Gesine
Posts: 14137
Joined: December 13th, 2005, 4:16 am

Post by Gesine »

Buechermaus: Hope you don't mind, I edited your post with an explanation that strg (German abbreviation for Steuerung) is ctrl (Control) on English keyboards - just to make sure people don't get confused. :)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world." Albert Einstein
neckertb
Posts: 12799
Joined: March 9th, 2009, 7:47 am
Location: French in Denmark

Post by neckertb »

A comment for recording/editing:

I've been editing some of Sandra's wonderful recordings and thought that I would mention that in order to make it easy to edit the clicks, it is important not to speak when it clicks. Deleting the clicks in silences is no problem. :D
Nadine

Les enfants du capitaine Grant

Live in a death + 70 country? Have a look at Legamus
jeanny
Posts: 773
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 9:24 am

Post by jeanny »

neckertb wrote:A comment for recording/editing:

I've been editing some of Sandra's wonderful recordings and thought that I would mention that in order to make it easy to edit the clicks, it is important not to speak when it clicks. Deleting the clicks in silences is no problem. :D
That's a very good suggestion. :)
Alas, Braille displays may complicate smooth editing a bit, though. There's always some (although small) background noise when you scroll the text, which often happens mid-word. A solution could be to first scroll and read the entire word, before reading it aloud, but this way you'd have more pauses in the recording.
annise
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 38571
Joined: April 3rd, 2008, 3:55 am
Location: Melbourne,Australia

Post by annise »

I didn't really find the clicks a major problem , they are something I would ask a new reader about , but once I knew not worry about - it is more a "wonder what that is?" than a "how irritating" in my opinion -

Anne
neckertb
Posts: 12799
Joined: March 9th, 2009, 7:47 am
Location: French in Denmark

Post by neckertb »

The clicks were not hard to edit at all in Sandra's recordings, because they were in the pauses. I just thought I'd mention it, since I'm not sure I would have thought about it myself until after I had recorded...
Nadine

Les enfants du capitaine Grant

Live in a death + 70 country? Have a look at Legamus
Starlite
Posts: 16548
Joined: April 30th, 2006, 2:17 pm
Location: Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada

Post by Starlite »

techluver put his braille machine on auto scroll for his test. Is this helpful?
but once I knew not worry about - it is more a "wonder what that is?" than a "how irritating" in my opinion -
Same here. At first I thought it was a noisy logitech headset. lol.

Esther :)
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
Sandra7
Posts: 479
Joined: April 6th, 2010, 2:32 pm
Location: Sopranoland

Post by Sandra7 »

Something I have considered although each line appears for the same amount of time, fluency would definitely be sacrificed if I were to do that. You don't get as much noise though.

In my other post, I forgot to mention that, before you start your series of key strokes for deleting, press enter to see if the sellect mode is on otherwise it won't work. Jaws will say so if it is.

All the best,
Sandra.
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