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RE: Screen readers or testing

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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Jul 30, 2002 1:53PM

If you want to have a copy of the JAWS, which is probably the most
popular screen reader, you can get a trial version from
www.freedomscientific.com that never expires. The only caveat is that
you can only use it for half an hour at a time, then you have to reboot
your computer to use it again. JAWS is not as easy to learn as you might
like it to be. You can see a list of JAWS keyboard shortcuts at
http://www.webaim.org/howto/jaws_keyboard, but it will take some time to
learn.

A program that is easier to learn is Home Page Reader, by IBM. It's much
more intuitive to visual users and is a high quality screen reader on
par with JAWS. The functionality is not identical, but pretty close.
Mostly it does things differently than JAWS, rather than better or
worse. Home Page Reader costs about $125 (though it's been a while since
I last checked the price).

Paul Bohman