RE: What's AT What's a screen reader

> s/day/say/
don't you mean c/day/say?
> To me a screen reader reads out exactly the displayed text.

I think that distinction is not helpful. When screen readers moved from DOS
to the GUI we already were not always reading the screen (especially
controls) though we hadn't moved into the object models yet. BUT - at any
time you CAN read the screen if you want with screen readers HAL,
Window-Eyes and JAWS. And you can do it with any application. That is what
makes a screen reader, which happens to be one kind of assistive technology.

Jim 
 
Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of David Woolley
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 3:34 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: What's AT What's a screen reader


> 
> 
> David Woolley said:
> 
> > (Tools like JAWS are AT, not screen readers.)
> 
> I just couldn't leave it alone. What possesed you to day this? 

s/day/say/

To me a screen reader reads out exactly the displayed text.  It is a
form of assistive technology, but tools like JAWS look at the underlying
document model and render from that.

A screen reader can only honour the visual media type.  More general
AT need not, but probably will, be limited to the visual media type.

Received on Monday, 4 April 2005 22:29:13 UTC