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Re: IBM Home Page Reader

for

From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Oct 16, 2001 3:44PM

Thanks Kynn and Paul, I do appreciate that HPR is not a "screen reader", but
for a sighted individual (my eyes are one of the few parts that work on this
body!) if it does a fair representation of simulating a screen reader for
the sole purpose of assessing web accessibility, then I may be tempted to
buy it at $120US (roughly $180CAD) rather than JAWS at $1200US ($1800CAD).
Cheers,
Glenda
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Glenda Watson Hyatt
Soaring Eagle Communications
"Creating freedom and power through accessible communications"
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]On Behalf Of
> Paul Bohman
> Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 2:04 PM
> To: WebAIM forum
> Subject: RE: IBM Home Page Reader
>
>
> Kynn's right when he says HPR isn't a screenreader. HPR is slightly more
> than "a browser that talks" though. Not only does it read web
> pages, but it
> can also read Notepad (e.g. when you view the source of web
> pages) and email
> (it has a built-in email program, which I've never used personally). Maybe
> you could call it an "Disability-Accessible Internet Connectivity Software
> Suite" or something else equally grand and overly verbose <smile/>.
>
> I want to echo Kynn's recommendation of HPR for Web developers. It is an
> excellent piece of software, in some ways superior to JAWS, but
> in most ways
> comparable. I use if often when testing web pages. It's definitely less
> expensive than JAWS. HPR is abot $120 and JAWS is about $800 or
> $1200(Win95/98/Me versus NT/200 price).
>
> You can, however, download the trial version of JAWS which has a half-hour
> time limit on usage. You can use it for up to half an hour, then
> you have to
> reboot your computer to get it to work again. Sometimes this is sufficient
> for Web developers. As far as I know, you can keep rebooting your computer
> as long as you want. I don't think there is an expiration date on
> the trial
> version.
>
> There is also a scaled-down version of JAWS called Connect Outloud, which
> retails for about $250. This is similar to HPR in that it is limited to
> browsing the web and accessing email--but Connect Outloud does read the
> desktop and Windows Explorer, which HPR does not. You can't read
> Word files,
> or anything else like that with Connect Outloud. Only the full version of
> JAWS can access Adobe PDF files (and this is only feasible in
> Adobe Acrobat
> 5.0, the latest version, and only if the PDF file was created accessibly;
> see http://access.adobe.com for more info). [but that's another topic
> entirely]
>
> Paul Bohman
> Technology Coordinator
> WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
> www.webaim.org
> Utah State University
> www.usu.edu
>
>
>
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