On Friday, August 29, 2003, at 03:13  PM, John Britsios wrote:

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Trebuchet MS</param><smaller>Not every
freelancer designer, developer, can afford buying JAWS, to test the
web sites they build.

</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt>

Web authors don't need JAWS. The vast majority wouldn't know how to
use it if they got it.


Web authors need the _output_ of JAWS.


Instead of asking screen reader and voice browser vendors to give away
the farm, why not ask them to create a Web-based service to emulate
what their tool speaks to the user? You don't need the text-to-speech
engine or the user interface; in fact, it would probably hinder you,
since reading is faster for most people than speech. You need a
textual representation of what JAWS or Window-Eyes or Home Page Reader
puts out.


As long as these folks don't consider what goes into their
text-to-speech engine to be a trade secret, I think this is a
reasonable (and minimally-invasive) request to make. But I can assure
you none of them are going to give away thousands of copies of their
software.


-

m