An excellent post. I wholeheartedly agree!

Kind regards,

David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: [log in to unmask]
Mobile: +61 488 988 936
Sent from my iPhone

> On 5/01/2017, at 10:36, Ana G <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> I think the benefits of having a robust screen reader built in to Windows, that can be easily accessed on any computer, and that developers can readily test far outweigh the perceived drawback of having to learn yet another set of commands.
> 
> 
> Narrator is a back-up screen reader for me. many of its commands have been easy to learn (i.e., I get the logic behind them and can remember them without much fuss). Some commands are harder to remember, and the general workflow for some common tasks is different, of course, but the learning curve hasn't felt burdensome to me, maybe because things work better with Narrator often enough that there's a payoff for all my work.
> 
> 
> The greater payoff is the idea that, if Narrator becomes a robust screen reader, I can use any computer anywhere, not just the ones I own. This means I can use the computer in my classroom to lecture from, even when I forget my laptop. It means that blind students can walk into the computer labs on campus to get homework done and that any blind person can go into any public library when his or her computer is down to spend up to two hours applying for jobs, getting homework done, browsing the internet, shopping online, reading email, and so on. It means that newly blind people can use computers that are familiar to them without having to stress over the cost of specialized software, which no one they know knows anything about. It means that people on fixed incomes don't have to struggle with out-of-date versions of Jaws, the screen reader they got while they were students or while they had an open Rehab case, but haven't been able to update on their own, especially since Jaws updates are priced cumulatively so that you can't jump two versions without paying for two separate updates, a practice not followed by other programs. It also means I can be more aggressive about pursuing inaccessible websites and services since developers won't have the excuse of unfamiliar software to learn.
> 
> 
> As an old dog, I don't like learning new tricks myself, but I learn them when they benefit me even though the process is frustrating: I suddenly have to slow down and deal with mistakes and a new routine. As someone who's used Jaws for twenty years, I know that the price of the software hasn't gone down, that scripting isn't any less expensive or easier for non-techies, that the screen reader works well with the same group of applications and not well with everything else, and that competition in the windows screen reader space hasn't created an accessibility environment that's different from what Apple has done in its monoculture. So life with Jaws, good or bad, is not likely to change. I can stick with it because it's familiar, or I can choose to step outside my comfort zone to try something that may work better for me, especially at this point in the development process, when I can influence what features are included and how things work in general.
> 
> 
> I do agree that Microsoft needs to do a better job of providing help information. The version of Narrator for Windows 8 and 8.1 didn't have much in terms of web resources. There is now a set of web pages with Narrator commands that is useful, but for real tutorials, we'll probably need to rely on people in our community to develop them, just as tutorials by sighted people are developed by individuals in that community.
> 
> 
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