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to struggle with out-of-date versions of Jaws, the screen reader they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.
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
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