[gui-talk] Voiceover

[Kevin Fjelsted]

Since there seems to be two questions hear one spacifically related to
VoiceOver and the second related to the Mac I believe it is important
to point out that windows including JAWS,or  WindowEyes... works
perfectly fine on the Mac as a guest hosted operating system using
Fusion by VmWare. Or the same system can be booted standalone on the
Mac using the Apple Boot Camp solution.  One may   make a choice every
time the computer is turned on. I have seen fusion for the Mac for as
little as $40 with rebates so it is a very pragmatic approach to look
at the solution this way and avoid being a totally Mac only user. The
other interesting approach is to look at the Mac Mini because it only
weighs three pounds and if one adds a null Mac video cable to it it
can be run without a monitor. The Mac Mini can be had for under $600
which includes the  OS  bundled with a mail solution and a text/word
processor solution which are totally accessible by VoiceOver.  This is
an amazing savings compared to purchasing a screen reader plus an
office solution  separately. With the savings a school could opt to
purchase a Braille display instead for example.   In general it seems
that the entire accessibility field is heating up and competition is
good.
To me the most significant accessibility aspect that I have seen in
the last two months is the accessible touch screen approach. The key
there is that no matter what our experience has been with any of the
accessibility tools it is important that no walls or absolutes be
defined. If sighted people love touch screens there is no reason why
we as the  Blind cannot access the same touch screen with the proper
implementation. This is full access including entering letters and
numbers turning on and off switches and sliders....
Since it looks very likely that Apple will be introducing a touch
screen tablet computer later this year from all the publication news
that is floating around we can expect to see a lot more touch screen.
Microsoft is working on touch screen as well. however there doesn't
seem to be any commitment  by Microsoft directly to support
accessibility out of the box. Based on Microsoft's poor profit record
at the moment budget axes will try and cut non-essentials so we will
have to be very attentive  if we have a prayer of Microsoft supporting
accessibility development.
-Kevin


On 7/25/09, James Pepper <b75205 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is the AFB Tech, the American Foundation for the Blind's Technology
> Center's review of Voice Over.  I highly recommend you check into the AFB
> Tech Site because they test everything in their West Virginia facility.
> http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw090603
>
> Just note that in the past Apple has been very vocal against the AFB because
> in the past you had to select text on the screen to read it and the folks at
> AFB tech pointed out that the blind could not see the screen to select the
> text.
>
> Here is a link to the braille version of the article:
>
> http://www.afb.org/afbpress/Braille.asp?DocID=aw090603&PageTitle=An+Evaluation+of+VoiceOver%2C+the+Macintosh+Screen+Reader+%2D+AccessWorld%AE+%2D+November+2008
>
> I would recommend staying with the PC environment because most accessibility
> was developed on that system and especially when you are dealing with
> Microsoft Office you will find that the mac versions do not have all the
> features of the PC versions.  I know that will cause a lot of chaos here but
> it is a problem.  Microsoft is the company that is focusing on accessibility
> and especially on the PC, they are fed up with the way things are going now
> and with their new ARIA standards, I would recommend staying on the PC
> bandwagon.
>
> James Pepper
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