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Even web sites for blind-people organizations are poorly made.

http://www.cnib.ca/

It's better than before, but I'm sure that it isn't as user friendly for blind people as it could be. If they can't make it right, then why should we help blind people?

I was a technical manager on the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) "Children's Discovery Portal". This is the children's interface into the larger CNIB Digital Library initiative that provides digital access to the entire CNIB audio archive, including newspapers and magazines. It's a free service to CNIB members.

The project was sponsered to a large extent by Microsoft. They threw millions at it. Not surprisingly, the entire infrastructure around it consists of MS technology (interfacing with the legacy CNIB user data). We're talking W2K3 Servers, IIS, SQL, .NET, even Commerce Server to provide users with book recomendations (a la Amazon.com). WMV was even chosen for the streaming audio format.

The sole browser/screenreader combo targeted is IE/JAWS.

I can tell you, JAWS was not chosen for any sort of advanced features or (percieved) usability. From an implentation POV, it's a nightmare. It's archaic software that is very picky in what/how it reads. It predates browsers and does not play well with pages that are not specifically designed for it. That said, the only reason it was targeted for the project is that it is the de-facto standard screenreader for the blind community. It's been around so long that it's ubiquitous. And as bad as it is, the kids use it intuitively and to it's fullest extent. I couldn't believe how fast they had JAWS cranked up (it was reading the screen at something like 10x speed) and they jump around the page using the keyboard controls faster then I (a sighted person) could read what was on the screen! Really something.

Anyway, love it or hate it, it seems like JAWS will stick around for at least a while yet.

I was a technical manager on the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) "Children's Discovery Portal". This is the children's interface into the larger CNIB Digital Library initiative that provides digital access to the entire CNIB audio archive, including newspapers and magazines. It's a free service to CNIB members.

The project was sponsered to a large extent by Microsoft. They threw millions at it. Not surprisingly, the entire infrastructure around it consists of MS technology (interfacing with the legacy CNIB user data). We're talking W2K3 Servers, IIS, SQL, .NET, even Commerce Server to provide users with book recomendations (a la Amazon.com). WMV was even chosen for the streaming audio format.

The sole browser/screenreader combo targeted is IE/JAWS.

I can tell you, JAWS was not chosen for any sort of advanced features or (percieved) usability. From an implentation POV, it's a nightmare. It's archaic software that is very picky in what/how it reads. It predates browsers and does not play well with pages that are not specifically designed for it. That said, the only reason it was targeted for the project is that it is the de-facto standard screenreader for the blind community. It's been around so long that it's ubiquitous. And as bad as it is, the kids use it intuitively and to it's fullest extent. I couldn't believe how fast they had JAWS cranked up (it was reading the screen at something like 10x speed) and they jump around the page using the keyboard controls faster then I (a sighted person) could read what was on the screen! Really something.

Anyway, love it or hate it, it seems like JAWS will stick around for at least a while yet.

You mean like this one? (It has a belt loop, rather than a wrist strap. From its size, I'd say it weighs in at under a pound.) The Bank of Canada has designed and circulated new currency specifically considering the visually impaired. The CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) lends readers to the blind free of charge.

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