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Suggestions for Web Readers?
lawndart asks: "A co-worker of mine recently had a stroke that removed his ability to read. More accurately he has no shape recognition abilities anymore. Before the accident he was a serious web addict, and is a little depressed that he can't surf anymore. He wants to use web reader software, but obviously needs someone else to find/install it, which is where I come in. I was hoping for some ideas on the best ones out there, with an emphasis on accuracy, and price. It needs to run on a Wintel type box and be relatively easy to use." I would suspect there are such programs already in the market for the blind, so if any of you have tried then and would be willing to pass on recommendations, please feel free.
I have relatively little experience with this type of software, but I have heard that the IBM Homepage Reader is a pretty good product and it's only $100 or so. It takes a while to get used to this kind of web interface though, and many sites are downright impossible to navigate with these kind of readers. I have a few blind friends and this is the only software they recommend.
-Nate
http://www.webspeakster.com/ws_faqs.htm... I was evaluating this for setting up a internet terminal for the visually impaired at our local public library. It uses Microsoft Speech, and has voices that I find better than the ones that come with Microsoft Speech SDK. Price is $49.95, and there is a free 15 start evaluation version. I am running it under NT.
I have encountered several times, a program called Jaws. Yes, it is windows based... but it does the job. The web site, as far as I know is http://www.hj.com, but this site seems to be down or no longer in existence.
w ww.hj.com/Index.html++site:www.hj.com+jaws&hl=en
Here is the link to the googel cache...: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:duIpRtE66tM:
From my (albeit third party) experiences, it does web borwsing as well as regular Windows windows (haha) etc..
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OK...did some more googling, and found some interesting schtuff. Freedom Scientific sells all sorts of accessiblity products for people. They DO sell the Jaws software, as well as other possible solutions for your friend. This is is the link to their main site http://www.freedomscientific.com/index.html, and this is the link to the Jaws page http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_news/nr_JAWS4. asp.
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I can understand how text to speech programs work...
But how about Ascii Art?
I mean...as I scroll through slashdot, the goatse.cx ascii art and the apparently forgotten penis birds are semi aggravating...although still a bit funny. How can Ascii art (for better or worse) be translated into something the blind can enjoy? It sure would suck to be listening to a page of comments and then have to sit through a gigantor ascii pic of natalie portman (pants full of hot grits of course) being interpreted and pronounced by the software. The only solution I can think of is maybe some sort of braille printer, but it might be hard to grasp (I know,bad pun). Any insight?
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She was using it more for mudding, so it may just be a terminal, and not so great for web page reading.
Anyway, I'd suggest looking for web pages / usenet / etc for blind resources, and see what you can find. Might also want to check if there are any seeing eye dog training facilities in your area, and give them a call.
Anyway, you might want to check out "Designing More Usable Web Sites" from the University of Wisconson:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Flamebait? This appears to be a valid question, and until now I had forgotten about penis birds. I'd like to say that I dont have a damn clue how a reader program could possibly interpret ascii art. I don't have enough disposable income to run out and buy a program to test it out either. A braille printer would probably do the trick though. I have a friend who was blinded after a car accident, and he tells me that interpretting semi nonsensical bumps and textures is what braille is all about, and anyone who can read braille proficiently could probably figure out what an ascii art picture is supposed to represent. This is of course assuming that the person knows what the hell ascii art is, a non tech person with no prior exposure to ascii art might have a harder time understanding. Still this does not invole test to speech software, and I dont know how it could.