E-mail List Archives

Search E-mail List Archives for

Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)

From: Strange, Lainie
Date: Wed, Aug 04 2004 4:58PM
Subject: Talking browsers - your opinions
No previous message | Next message →

With the significant cost of many screen readers, I wanted to get
anyone's opinion on using some of the talking browsers (preferably free)
that I could use for ADA testing.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Lainie Strange, Web Developer
MO Dept of Elem & Sec Ed.
http://dese.mo.gov
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From: Glenda
Date: Wed, Aug 04 2004 5:27PM
Subject: Re: Talking browsers - your opinions
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Lainie,

Ibm Home Page Reader has a thirty-day trial. Not sure how it compares with
other screen readers tho. Perhaps someone else here can comment, but from
what I understand developers often use that one for testing.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Glenda
Soaring Eagle Communications

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 8:53AM
Subject: Re: Talking browsers - your opinions
← Previous message | Next message →

Lainie,
I think functional testing for accessibility, but speech
rendering is only one type of testing and most of the testing
for speech compatibility can also be done with browsers like
Opera or Mozilla [1] with a plug-in developed at the
University of Illinois.

I have developed a draft "Best Practices" web design proposal
that includes sections on functional accessibility. I would
be interested in what people think about it.

http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/uiuc-web-best-practices.htm

Jon

[1] http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/software/mozilla/index.html

P.S. There is IBM Home Page Reader that will read web pages,
it is only $149. There is a 30 day demo.
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html





---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:35:20 -0500
>From: "lainie.strange"
>Subject: [WebAIM] Talking browsers - your opinions
>To: "WebAIM Discussion List"
>
>
>
>
>With the significant cost of many screen readers, I wanted to get
>anyone's opinion on using some of the talking browsers
(preferably free)
>that I could use for ADA testing.
>
>Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Lainie Strange, Web Developer
>MO Dept of Elem & Sec Ed.
>http://dese.mo.gov
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>----
>To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit
http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>


Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund

From: Michael Moore
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 6:29PM
Subject: Re: Talking browsers - your opinions
← Previous message | No next message

It really depends upon the sophistication of you site and the type of
content that you are delivering. I have used IBM HPR as a testing and a
demonstration tool. The advantages of HPR is that it has a faster learning
curve and lower cost than a full blown screen reader like Jaws. It does a
good job of demonstrating the reading order of a page, table navigation and
most forms with results that are very similar to Jaws - just different
keystrokes.
However, if you need to test the accessibility of more sophisticated content
including pdfs, flash, and some imbedded javascript Jaws and the other
screen readers will provide you with much more reliable results.

Screen readers, talking browsers and other forms of assistive technology are
in many ways similar to any other platform used to deliver web content.
They all have their own quirks. How well they work for a given user with a
given web site often depends upon two things: the quality of the markup, and
the sophistication of the user. We can never test for all possible
platforms where our content may be consumed. However if we build to
standards, if we design our interfaces in such a way that they are not
unnecessarily complicated, and we test them using a combination of testing
tools and code inspection techniques that are appropriate to the content,
then everyone will have a better experience with the sites that we build.

Mike Moore