WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: best text to speech ap to show my non-geek sighted friends?

for

From: shawn klein
Date: Feb 29, 2008 6:10PM

Thanks Phil. The blog is interesting, but a bit slow
to respond. This may just be because my computer is
4-1/2 years old with only 768 MB of ram. My download
speed is 1.5 mb/s, but my upload speed is only 256
kb/s, this could also effect things. I had a bit of
trouble understanding some of what the voice was
saying in regards to the hotkeys, but I couldn't make
it spell what I missed. I played it 3 times before I
got it, all but one. It seems to be saying that X
takes you to the next dive. Although it seems to take
you to the next line of text. I had to think for a
second before I realized that full stop must be
period. I tested NB, which put me in input mode, but
then f8 didn't work. I had to press f9 twice to get
out of input mode, but this may be because I was using
Firefox. Natural voices are cool, but I think they
have a ways to go. There's a lot of yodel going on. My
biggest issue was some lack of feedback. When you are
working with something that's slow to react, lack of
feedback is troublesome. I think that's what it was
anyway, sometimes I would press x to go to the next
line and would hear nothing. Is it running into blank
lines? I didn't notice so many blank lines with Window
Eyes. I did shut down Window Eyes first, the second
time I tried it, then brought up the page. This to
make sure hotkeys wouldn't conflict.
--- <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:

> Send WebAIM-Forum mailing list submissions to
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web,
> visit
>
> http://list.webaim.org/mailman/listinfo/webaim-forum
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body
> 'help' to
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it
> is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of WebAIM-Forum digest..."
> > Today's Topics:
>
> 1. best text to speech ap to show my non-geek
> sighted friends?
> (shawn klein)
> 2. Re: best text to speech ap to show my non-geek
> sighted
> friends? (Phil Teare)
> > Subject: [WebAIM] best text to speech ap to show
my
> non-geek sighted friends?
> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:08:53 -0800 (PST)
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> From: shawn klein < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>
> Hi. I meet lots of sighted people on line who are
> interested in how I use a computer, but I don't
> think
> they're all quite computer savvy enough or would
> want
> to take the time to install a demo version of Window
> Eyes or Jaws, and I know that Jaws and Window Eyes
> interfere with the normal use of the mouse for
> people
> who aren't used to having a screen reader running.
> Example: they can't fill out forms in the normal
> way,
> and Jaws shakes the mouse pointer when it speaks. At
> least Connect Outloud did when I had it 4 years ago.
> I
> don't know if this applies to NVDA or not. If not
> I'd
> like to know, because that might be the perfect
> choice
> then. NVDA doesn't play nice with IE, but I can warn
> them away from having IE open with NVDA running.
> Narrator would be great, but it doesn't even
> recognize
> all the voices I have on MY computer. The only voice
> choice is Sam. This isn't good for some of my
> friends
> who speak little or no English. And to tell you the
> truth I wouldn't wish Sam on my worst enemy! Anyone
> have any ideas for something free, compact, requires
> minimal set up, and at least will read what someone
> types in the window, and works with something like
> Via
> Voice or Espeak, and allows you to choose voice and
> language, and allows you to change settings with the
> mouse so they don't have to learn keyboard
> shortcuts?
> I know of one like that, but it just works with
> Skype,
> and not everybody has or wants Skype. Thanks for any
> ideas.
>
>
>
>