At first, I didn’t really mind I had to remove my hands from the display so it could properly refresh. I was mostly reading books. Then, when I began to use it to proofread for work, I also didn’t mind it because as you proofread, the process is slow and you stop and think a lot.
But that changed when I began interacting more. For example, I decided, as I’m a very fast Braille reader to turn off speech. It is, after all a Braille device.
But I found when speech was off, even if I navigated through the main menu or all applications menus using the spacebar, I’d want to run my left hand down the lefthand side of the display to see the focus indicator change to the next line. But that would mess up the refresh, so I had to remove my hand, hit space, and then try to locate the focus indicator again.
It was also a problem editing if speech wasn’t active, because each focus change would cause some refresh to occur, and using other displays I can keep my fingers on the Braille while I make changes to it.
Then, when I began working in terminal mode, it was again a problem. If I was just reading, all was good. But if for example, I’d be hitting the arrow keys with one hand and observing the results with the other hand, I would disturb the refresh frequently.
I would also disturb the refresh if I was tabbing through a dialog box or other interface where controls needed to gain focus before you could work with them, and I touched the display too soon. An example is an in-house database, though it’s a problem with any dialog box.
Also because in most applications you only see a single line of Braille, I actually found it easier to go back to using my Brailliant or even the NLS eReader in places where I interacted with tab and arrow keys a great deal.
Monarch terminal mode does a nice job with tabular data if the tables are not too wide, but if I am just working in a document, database or similar application, it doesn’t make things easier. Even with fully accessible apps, you typically only see the control that got focus with JAWS and NVDA. JAWS is able to give you multi-line Braille with featured apps, but not with all accessible apps, and NVDA mostly shows you just one line at a time.
And though split Braille is cool, there’s not enough screen real estate to make it practical for situations where it could truly speed up work.
Ideally, multi-line Braille should give you the entire content of a window in any otherwise accessible application. That fix is just software.
The refresh problem is hardware, and likely it won’t be possible to solve. I believe this will be a serious limitation for productivity needs though it should not affect the Monarch’s ability to serve as a great learning tool for students.
In my opinion only of course, much of the Monarch’s design is targeted for school learning and not necessarily for workplace productivity. I feel a little guilty I use it more to read science fiction than to do my job, and I hope one day this will change.