The Skype8 checklist.

Hi everyone

Some of you may have heard our LeaseyBite 36 audio demonstration of support we will be including for Skype version 8 in our product Leasey. Things have moved on in terms of the functionality which has been created to support this application, and when we are ready to release it, we will be updating the LeaseyBite to reflect the new improvements. However, I thought it might be useful to provide a list of the features so far and invite you to suggest any improvements or modifications to them so we obtain the best possible user feedback.

Skype8 is obviously going to be very important moving forward and we would therefore like our Leasey product to contain the best support we can give to it. Moreover, we think that the text chat is particularly important for people who are both deaf and blind, so we're very keen to make provision in that regard too.

Features include:

When someone is typing a message, a sound plays to indicate that someone is doing so. This is easily enabled or disabled via a keystroke and the volume can be independently adjusted. The sound could be substituted for one of your own choosing.

Pressing a keystroke will announce if a person is typing or not.

Pressing Control+1 through to Control+0 will speak or output to braille the ten most recently received messages, with Control+1 giving the most recent. These are taken from the Skype history list, so even if you have opened up a conversation after a number of days, you ought to be able to remind yourself of past messages. If any of these keys are pressed twice quickly, the content of the message is sent to the JAWS virtual Viewer for closer inspection.

A keystroke exists to enable a feature which will filter out the timestamp of the message, so you only get to see the message text. This option can be enabled or disabled at any time.

Pressing Escape from a conversation moves back to the conversations list. Ordinarily, pressing Escape produces no focus movement, but the feedback we've received so far suggests that would make things more familiar to people.

A global keystroke is available to answer an incoming call, irrespective of the application in which you are working.

Keystrokes exist to report the current mood text, the Skype's status (such as Active or Do Not Disturb), and the Skype credit balance if available.

From the Find Contact dialog, pressing Enter sets focus to the first result and speaks it or sends it to Braille.

As with all Leasey support, there is an Application Menu and Hotkey Help, displaying all the actions you can perform together with keystrokes in the case of Hotkey Help. Pressing Enter on any item will carry it out so it is not necessary to remember the keystroke. This applies to special script functions together with native Skype hotkeys.

Context Sensitive Help is available in many areas, so as to provide control specific help information. This should hopefully aid the transition for users who wish to migrate to Skype8.

Finally, there will be a set of keystrokes specifically for the ElBraille and Focus displays. These should assist in terms of answering calls, moving between the text input field and History list, etc. This is a very important part of what we are offering. If you are reliant on Braille output only, it is essential to be able to move around the application with keystrokes which are easy to use and which do not require a multitude of key presses to get to where you need to be.

If you think we have misssed anything, please do let us know. What we're interested in doing here is to:
Give people Skype functionality they are used to;
Make it easy to learn, and
Ensure Braille users have a chance of using the program in an efficient way.

You can tweet @HartgenConsult or write to brian@hartgenconsultancy.com with any suggestions.

Happy Talking!