RE: WeMedia's talking browser

WeMedia's Talking Browser (v 1.2) seems to be a good start (and the price is
certainly right). The basic "read the whole page" function can be useful,
although it doesn't allow the user to navigate/control reading like a full
screen reader or Home Page Reader (which are addmittely much more
expensive...) Sighted users can also use it to read specific text that they
have selected/highlighted with the mouse. It's "text only" view, which
offers a few text color/size options, is handy.

I am a little surprized that it seems to ignore images all together, even
those with ALT text. Also, while reading a page, it doesn't indicate when it
is reading a link vs regular text. There is a "page map" feature that is a
links list, but it also misses ALT text on image links (providing the full
HREF URL instead) and TITLE attributes set on text links.

The speech overall is probably too verbose. For example, in the page
map/links list it announces each link as "Link number x, link displayed is
<link text>". For a non-visual user it means listening through a lot of
extra, repetitive speech to find a desired link. Simply saying the link text
would probably be adequate.

For now, it looks like it's biggest potential would be for users who are
partially sighted or have reading disabilities.

I have only looked at it quickly, and I'd be happy to hear if anyone else
has better luck.

Mike

p.s. Be careful of the "My Zoom" feature (in the Tools menu) -- it takes my
Windows 2000 machine down every time...


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Scott Luebking
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 3:15 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: WeMedia's talking browser

Hi,
Has anyone checked out WeMedia's talking browser?  Any comments?
    http://www.wemedia.com/talking_browser
Thanks,
Scott

Received on Monday, 11 June 2001 11:09:23 UTC