One of the main problems I face with regards to attempting to live without vision is that of access to technology. As my bio says, I'm a freelance writer and thus the word processor is an important tool for me, I simply couldn't live without it because it is such a fundamental part of my work.
So to live without vision I need to be able to still access my word processor. Other tools (my dictionary, encyclopaedia and the Internet, for example) would be useful too. Because of these, I really need a decent screen reader. However, the idea of a decent screen reader seems to be way off in the future because right now I really believe there just isn't one. I've tried two different ones on different operating systems and I hate both of them.
On Windows I looked at JAWS, which is generally regarded as the best screen reader available to PC users. My first impression was that it installed very nicely, with each part of the installation process being spoken to me using a voice that was easy to understand. The installation controls were simple and effective. I installed it without having to look at the screen (a good thing, I'm sure you'd agree!) and I was very much impressed. However, that's where the good aspects ended, in my opinion.
Once installed, the voice of the software changed to something that sounded more like the awful synthetic drawl of Microsoft's Narrator (ever tried to use that as a screen reader? It's terrible, it only describes buttons, not what's on screen!). It did a good job of telling me there were 23 icons on my desktop and was very good at explaining which buttons I was typing on my keyboard. Initial impressions were therefore good but the voice was a serious disappointment since it clearly wasn't the voice that had been on the installation, which made me question why they had a better voice for the install program than the actual program.
Once it was installed I was told I had an important e-mail to read (Gmail notifier is great, I must add) so I booted up Firefox, my browser of choice. I forget whether JAWS told me about Gmail's notifier of if I was looking at the screen by this point to see whether JAWS was describing everything accurately. I was certainly looking at the screen a minute after loading Firefox however, as JAWS screwed it over!
I'm willing to give up some things in order to get a working screen reader so I can work blind. However, the Google search bar is not one one of them. For reasons unknown to me, JAWS seems to think that when I click on the search bar on Google and start to type so I can search for something what I really want to do is access JAWS's keyboard-driven extra features. No, no, no! I don't want that at all! Annoying software that takes over my computer without asking is not what I need. I quickly turned the software off so I could wrestle control of my computer back from it.
Having discussed JAWS with some other people since this happened it seems it takes a lot of setting-up to get working properly. Perhaps when I have a couple of weeks free I'll give it another go but I must say it's a massive disappointment that it doesn't seem to have basic functionality right out of the box.
The second screen reader I tried out comes bundled with Ubuntu, a version of Linux that I really do enjoy using. I can't remember its name right now but I've just downloaded the Beta for the next version of Ubuntu and I'm happy to see this particular screen reader has been replaced. Obviously other people had the same poor experience as I did, then.
I run Ubuntu on two computers, one is a large desktop with an AMD64 processor and the other is a small laptop running on celery (my preferred term for the rather low-par Celeron processor as I often think running a computer of celery would actually make it work better). The two systems have different architecture and different sound cards. Neither system works with the screen reader bundled with Ubuntu 6 for one simple reason: the software to run the screen reader installs and runs perfectly (it also doesn't try to take over my machine, which is a bonus!) but this software relies on a separate piece of software to actually synthesize the voice the screen reader speaks with. The voice software doesn't want to work on either computer.
So I'm going to install Ubuntu 7 Beta today and see if I can get a nice speech synthesizer working. I'll report back later with news on how this one fares. :) Wish me luck! (I might need it)
6 comments:
Most of the computer-geeking went over my head, but I do agree about the celery. I have a paperweight that runs on an old Celeron 500, and it serves well in that role (paperweight), but as a computer, I think a stalk of celery would be more effective.
I will say that arranging one's environment to be able to simulate one's needed condition can be very therapeutic for those of us with BIID in its many forms. Nothing short of actually ACHIEVING the condition in question will actually 'cure' the BIID, but simulation can help some.
I toyed with JAWS briefly but was really put off when it took so long to configure. I thought it'd be easy for testing web accessibility but sod that. It takes too long.
I toyed with JAWS briefly but was really put off when it took so long to configure.
Yes, that's pretty much how I feel with it, too. Thank goodness for Orca being reasonably well configured to start with.
You'd have thought that for over a thousand pounds JAWS would come with some decent pre-configuation though!
"I will say that arranging one's environment to be able to simulate one's needed condition can be very therapeutic for those of us with BIID in its many forms."
Agreed. Right now I need some simulation, too; hence the sudden drive with this speech synthesiser work. :)
FWIW, in my "real life", part of what I do is web accessibility consultation. I recommend that web developers who use JAWS or other screen readers casualy to check their site, don't. There is no way you can test a site if you don't know how to use your screen reader.
JAWS is a complex system with a lot of options, and it takes a while to learn how to use it. If you wanna test, load Lynx and you'll get a decent idea of what your site looks like ;)
It sucks that the learning curve is so high. The amount of things required to go into what you're doing is one of the problems that the character based languages like Japanese and Chinese are having. Too many things for too few buttons, and any more makes it ridiculously complex.
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