RE: Screen Readers

Jo,

JAWS for Windows is generally considered to be the leading Windows screen
reader in the US. You can find a free demo version at
http://www.hj.com/JAWS/JAWS.html. Window-Eyes, http://www.gwmicro.com,
Window Bridge, http://www.synthavoice.com, and HAL,
http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk/, are also contenders. I believe they all also
offer demonstration versions.

You may also want to try a speech-enabled browser like IBM's Home Page
Reader, http://www-3.ibm.com/able/hpr.html, and a screen magnifier with
speech like ZoomText Xtra Level 2, http://www.aisquared.com.

Testing with the actual assistive technologies is definitely a vitally
important step in designing accessible sites (& software), and can really
help you understand the purpose and spirit of WCAG guidelines.

Hope this helps,
Mike

MSF&W Consulting
http://www.msfw.com

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Jo Donkin
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 6:14 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Screen Readers

Hi

I'm new to this list so apologies for a simple question.  I'm interested in
accessibility of web sites, but I have never tried screen reader software.
What are the 'best' ones (not sure how to define best at this point), where
can they be got hold of and how much do they cost?  I'm just interested to
see how they work and how good they are.

Thanks for any help

Jo

  _____

Jo Donkin
Department of Computer Science
Durham University, Durham
DH1 3EL
0191 374 2075
j.m.donkin@dur.ac.uk <mailto:j.m.donkin@dur.ac.uk>
www.dur.ac.uk/j.m.donkin/ <http://www.dur.ac.uk/j.m.donkin/>
  _____

Received on Friday, 16 February 2001 09:34:46 UTC