WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

RE: Online counterparts to JAWS ect

for

From: smithj7
Date: Apr 22, 2006 7:30AM

I'm not quite sure if I totally understand your question, but I believe
what you are asking is there technology out there that a web developer
can add to a website to make it read. Actually, there is. Go to Google
search engine and type "text to voice". I've been looking for a
specific voice to text software product.

The on-line reader I'm searching for looked like the Microsoft help
assist "wizard" icon and the output could be turned on or off. I saw it
a couple years ago on one of the low vision sites, but now can't find
it. So if anyone knows where it is, I would like to know. A future
goal is a kids site to learn about blindness and I'd love to add this
wizard.

But such online tools wouldn't at this time meet the needs of a person
who is blind using assistive technology like window-eyes or jaws.

For example, Adobe 7 will read the text. Many of the staff at our agency
who use JAWS or window eyes at my agency hate adobe PDF files. They
don't use the adobe reader's speech.

Also even if there was a POWERFUL online counterpart to read a page
(e.g. not just read text from top to bottom, but read headers, links,
allow for edit mode, ect), there would still be a need for AT like JAWS
and Window-Eyes cause users read more than on-line text (e.g. word docs,
excel files, downloaded email). They also need the AT software to
interact with products like their word processing systems.

Folks using access technology don't just need to learn commands of a
product like say Microsoft word, but also the commands of the special
technology that interacts with that product. If we added this wonderful
new technology just for online purposes, there would need to be training
on how to make it work if it did more than just read top to bottom and
the users would still need access to AT for off-line work.

Note I have dyslexia and do use adobe 7 to read a page (not just to
check good read order but because it makes it quicker for me to get the
info.) I can read text, but when under stress, it is a real task. I
use Talking Books for pleasure reading. My daughter also has a learning
disability and I downloaded the trial version of JAWS - runs 40 minutes
and shuts down (way back when she was learning to read... She's now 17)
and put the speed as slow. She could hear and read at the same time.
It helped her comprehension. Sometimes I wish the folks making AT would
get together and produce products that would help larger groups of
persons. Then the cost could come down.