
Ask HN: Can you help out a blind guy by describing the look of an application? - jscholes
Screenshot below.<p>I didn&#x27;t write this application, but I do use it every single day and it was developed pretty much exclusively for screen reader users.  However I&#x27;ll be giving a presentation involving some screenshots from it on Friday so some descriptions would be great!  How does it look to you?  What&#x27;s the layout and do you think it works?  (I&#x27;m not expecting it to look that great.)<p>Many thanks if you can help out!<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dropbox.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;okt34fulaoxg3b7&#x2F;Screenshot%202016-06-08%2021.18.18.png?dl=1
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buttershakes
The QRead application window is maximized taking up the whole screenshot.

On the upper left there are the main menus, Document, Navigation, Speech,
Window, and Help.

Directly below that are three tabs each containing a document.

Pattern-Oriented architecture, A system of patterns: Volume 1 (Wiley Software
Patterns series) The Architecture of Open Source Applications (which is the
currently active tab) Surveillance (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 3)

On the same line flush right are small left/right arrow controls that
presumably cycle the tabs.

Directly below the tabs is the text of the selected tab, in this case its a
chapter listing. There are 4 carriage returns between each of the Chapter
listings.

At the bottom of the window is a Document Position slider, that presumably can
be moved to scroll quickly through the text.

\------

Seems fairly functional to me, there is also a right scroll bar on the text
field that I think serves a similiar purpose to the Document position control
although less explicitly.

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Twenty44
The layout is a pretty typical Windows application layout. Toolbar on the top,
below that there is a scrollable text area with navigational tabs across the
top of it, probably for working with multiple documents, and finally, at the
bottom, there is a horizontal slider labelled "document position". I imagine
the slider progresses forward as the text-to-speech progresses, thus showing
how far in the document the text-to-speech is, and how much of the document
remains.

It looks like a pretty typical Windows application. A bit simple, but there is
nothing wrong with that. It looks like something a Computer Science student
might build in Visual Basic for a University project. I think it looks a bit
dated, like it's running on a Windows 98 computer. I wouldn't call it pretty,
but definitely functional. I feel like I could use this application without
needing to be instructed on how to use it. The purpose of every GUI element
seems obvious, which is a good thing.

I hope I helped! Best of luck in your presentation!

~~~
jscholes
You definitely helped. There will probably be one or two other visually
impaired people in the audience on Friday so being able to give a detailed
description of what everybody else is seeing will be a huge bonus for them
also. Thanks a lot!

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rawland
_Description:_

A lot like notepad with tabs for several documents, which are also opened in
the screenshot. At the bottom, one can see a slider with the title "Document
position" for easy navigation. Most importantly the Menu consists of the
entries: Document, Navigation, Speech, Window and Help.

 _How does it look to me:_

It looks simple and functional. Seems to be optimized for screen reading as
there is not a single icon or graphic.

 _What 's the layout and do you think it works:_

It's an older Windows layout with the menubar at the top, followed by the tab
bar. Under that one, and covering something like 90% of the screen, is a
notepad-like textarea and finally at the bottom is the slider.

Assuming the menu has submenus and it is not too difficult to navigate around
there, I assume it works pretty well as it is as simple as it can get. Maybe
the slider handling is difficult because I can not imagine how a blind person
can ever click on the tiny position indicator. However, it probably has some
keyboard shortcuts. But I can only imagine at this point.

~~~
jscholes
I just tab to the slider and adjust it with the arrow keys, page up/down, etc.
Same goes for many of the controls inside most apps. I don't have enough
usable vision to use a mouse even a little bit.

Thanks for your answers, I've got some really great responses to this posting
so far.

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jkimmel
There is single large window displaying text, with lots of space between the
lines. At the top, there are tabs with the names of different books. It looks
like you can scroll in the large window displaying text to read a book. Also
at the top, there are dropdown menus with what I assume are different
application options. At the bottom, there is a sliding position indicator
labeled "Document position".

It looks the way I would expect an older e-book reader application to look. It
seems totally usable and intuitive. I know exactly where to click and what I
might expect to happen.

There could definitely be some aesthetic improvements, but as far as "UI
functionality" is concerned, this is great.

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LarryMade2
Its a very plain layout, mostly a big document area where there is text.

At the top of the window below the window title are the menu items: Document,
Navigation, Speech, Window and Help

Below those are open document tabs going horizontally - they can be very
verbose like the entire title of the book with author

below that is the big document area there is also a vertical scrollbar to the
right of the document.

Below the document is a vertical slider control spanning the width with the
name "Document position"

And below that there is apparently a status-bar (like on web browsers, going
across horizontally,) and seems to be divided in half for messages either on
the left or right. currently blank.

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DKnoll
Hey there, I'll do my best.

QRead looks like a minimal ebook reader application. There is a tab bar at the
top to select an open book/document and the book/document is displayed in a
large text field in the centre, looking not unlike notepad. At the bottom of
the window there is a slider control to navigate the document.

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anonfunction
It looks very old, kind of like from windows 95 or something. Everyone else
described the actual content but that is what stood out to me.

Edit: Clickable link that doesn't download:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/okt34fulaoxg3b7/Screenshot%202016-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/okt34fulaoxg3b7/Screenshot%202016-06-08%2021.18.18.png)

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johnwheeler
You're getting a lot of good help here, so this is just a comment. My name is
John. Contact me at john@johnwheeler.org if you have an idea for an Amazon
Echo application to help blind people.

