Does anybody have any difficulties concentrating on multiple things at once? What about when there are various distractions going on all at the same time including things flashing on the computer or mobile screen from applications or sound alerts from applications? These kinds of distractions might not only affect people with hidden or visible disabilities they could also affect people without a disability. I have learned to suppress audio alerts from chats by pressing the control key or any key while I am typing otherwise the alerts/messages will negatively affect me as described below.
I attended an excellent presentation, Microsoft Inclusive Design: The Cognitive Model at axe-con 2023 where the presenter played the video at the link below. This described some of what it is like for screen reader users who are blind or have low vision to try to remain focused on multiple sound sources at once. Example are people speaking in conference calls , the screen reader participant having conversations, listening to their screen reader read parts of chats automatically , listening to their screen reader read the notes from the meeting as they review them, their screen reader reading to them as they type notes, and other sounds all at the same time. As you might realize this could be challenging to focus on all of these sounds coming from a variety of sources all at once.
A feature in JAWS screen reader which could either help or hurt in this experience is anytime the user presses a keystroke when typing it silences the external chats and alerts. By silencing alerts it allows JAWS to echo back the pressed keystroke for that moment therefore depending on how much the user is typing the user might miss a lot of chats and alerts. In addition to the concept of keeping focused this video also has other valuable inclusive design techniques and learning opportunities.
How do you achieve focus? | Microsoft Inclusive Design – YouTube
Does anybody have any related stories or examples to share? Do you have any suggestions to help alleviate these distractions? Any other thoughts or ideas to add to this discussion? I look forward to hearing from you.
If you have any comments or feedback, can you please send an email to Bill Tipton since unfortunately the comments are closed to my blog site.
Bill
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
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