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Re: How does a Screen Reader work?

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From: tedd
Date: Mar 3, 2007 4:50PM

At 2:41 PM -0500 3/3/07, Karl Groves wrote:
>Tedd -
>
>Unfortunately, this really is the kind of thing you must experience to
>understand.
>On a most basic level, the answer is obvious: It reads the page.
>But the experience - for the user of the software - is much more than just
>hearing text being read aloud. Things like navigating, following links, and
>support for event handlers & dynamic content is also at issue as well.
>
>I wholeheartedly recommend downloading a trial version of Jaws:
>http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/jaws.asp
>There are far too many features (such as shortcut keys) for you to be able
>to learn it during the demo period, but actually using a screen reader for a
>while will be much more beneficial to you than almost anything.
>
>Karl L. Groves

Karl:

I thank you for your recommendation. However, my machine is a Mac and
Jaws isn't available to me.

In any event, let me present my question another way, I use the
"Fangs" extension of FireFox to display web pages to me that are
supposed to be representative of what the blind user hears.

Okay, I get the idea behind that "read and speak" thing. However, I
don't know how a blind user accesses buttons and edit fields. It's
one thing to say "button", it's another to have access and be able to
activate it.

For example, I have an experiment I've been working on, which is an
audio CAPTCHA. A sighted user can immediately recognize what it is
and cab use it, but I don't know if a blind or visually impaired user
can -- and that's the point of the exercise.

So, if it's not too much trouble, can the following link be tested by
a visually impaired user?

http://sperling.com/examples/captcha/

I think the site is well documented so there is little need for me to
explain the experiment here.

I am open to receiving comment from all.

Thanks again for your time.

Cheers,

tedd


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