Apple Voiceover

First, I would like to begin this post with a definition, for those not familiar with assistive technology terminology. A screen reader is a piece of software that runs alongside the operating system. This software will read all of the text and turn it into speech. So, documents in Microsoft Word can be read this way, as well as most web pages on the internet.

For those familiar with Windows computers, it is well known that often the built in Windows screen reader is not adequate enough for most users who are blind or visually impaired. In order to solve this problem, the user must pay upwards of $500 for a screen reader called JAWS (Jobs Access With Speech) developed by Freedom Scientific.

There are other Windows screen reader software packages out there. Some of them are System Access and Windows Eyes.

However, for Macintosh users, there is a much better solution than buying an expensive program. OS X contains a built in screen reader called VoiceOver. The Apple site has a great selection of text and video based VoiceOver tutorials here.

VoiceOver can be enabled by going to the System Preferences, then clicking on Universal Access. Then, you will see a dialogue that has VoiceOver on top. This can be turned on by clicking the on and off radio buttons, or by holding down the Command, fn, and F5. If you are on a Mac, give it a try.

Are you a Mac user? If so, do you use VoiceOver, or some other program?
if you are already familiar, did this link help you in any way?

What about you Windows users? Which program do you use, and what are the benefits?