Dear AccessWorld Editor,
In response to Jamie Pauls' Dolphin Guide from Dolphin Computer Access: A Suite of Access Programs that Simplify Computer Use:
I have been using JAWS since 1988, and many times I still struggle remembering commands, which makes navigation a bit slow and cumbersome.
I love the fact that I have so many voice choices with synthesizers provided. I have used JAWS for so many years (27 now), and I have yet to find a better system, but Guide demands exploring! Without having yet tried it, I can say now that Tom and the synthesizer you mentioned are not a satisfactory synthesized voice for me, although I use it on my Victor Stream reader, as the other choice (female) is worse!
Bottom line, I will probably try the free trial version of Guide. I wish it were available with more voice choices, and I wish it had been available in 1988! Note: I love your technology evaluation articles.
Keep them coming…
Thanks,
James O. Theall
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
In response to Bill Holton's Help Me See: The Organization Dedicated to Eliminating Cataract Blindness Globally:
I like the idea of the system being funded in these countries so that doctors by repaying start-up loans feed the cycle for more doctors to come into place. I wonder if a doctor simply decided not to repay, what might happen.
I visited the website, but I don't find it as easy to use as others. Because I was born with cataracts, I thought about sending a one-time $50 donation, but I dislike having to give so much information. Can't a first name, e-mail address, and a PayPal payment work?
I'm glad that children as old as 12 can benefit from this surgery. I had always thought, as your article disproved, that by age three it was too late. I think that idea was based on an experiment using kittens that had been kept in the dark since birth.
Thank you,
David in Louisiana
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I recently heard about this app called Be My Eyes. I haven't used it yet but I have downloaded it and it seems accessible. If a blind person needs help identifying what something is then the app puts the person who is blind and a person who is sighted together via a live video/audio connection where the sighted person can tell the blind person what they see through the camera. I think it would be cool if you could publish an article about it to inform other blind people.
Thanks,
Brittany Breen
Response from AccessWorld Editor-in-Chief, Lee Huffman
Dear Brittany,
Please read Bill Holton's A Review of the Be My Eyes Remote Sighted Helper App for Apple iOS.
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I am writing to you from Colombia. I am a blind clinical psychologist who reads with a great deal of interest every issue of Access World. Let me congratulate you and thank you for your great job as editor of this publication.
Recently I came across a program that really is changing my professional life for the better. This program is Dragon Natural Speaking. As you might be aware, this program allows the user to dictate text directly to the computer. Recently Brian Hargen, from Hartgen Consultancy in the UK developed a set of scripts that he calls JDictate that makes Dragon a very friendly app to be used in conjunction with JAWS.
It would be nice if AccessWorld could publish an article regarding Dragon and how this app can be used with JAWS. I am sure that many people who are blind could benefit greatly from this app now that Brian has made it very accessible to Jaws users.
Kind regards,
Luis Eduardo Peña
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
In response to the article The Free iBill Money Identifier from the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, by Breonna Patterson and Lee Huffman:
Most of the time when trying to use the iBill, I get an error. Unless the bill is very new, it doesn't seem to read it, and if the bill has been folded or the corners are a little ragged, it won't read.
Barb Lombardi
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
In response to Bill Holton's Apple Receives AFB's Prestigious Helen Keller Achievement Award:
Like you, I respect and appreciate Apple's work on accessibility technology. VoiceOver was a dramatic advance, and the company may be commended for its efforts overall.
That said, one area of continued disappointment is the fact that VoiceOver does not support accessible (tagged) PDF documents.
Although VoiceOver is capable of "scraping" content from PDF pages, it is incapable of providing the logical ordering, table, list, and heading structures, alternative text, and other features that responsible authors include in PDF documents to make them accessible.
PDF documents are ubiquitous, and frequently contain key information such as banking data, insurance adjustments, airline tickets, and so on. Apple would do a great service—and continue to lead the way in accessibility technology—if VoiceOver was extended to provide support for tagged PDF, including for PDF/UA, the ISO standard for accessible PDF.
Sincerely,
Duff Johnson
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
In response to Bill Holton's Apple Receives AFB's Prestigious Helen Keller Achievement Award:
It's true that Apple has done a somewhat better job than Microsoft in accessibility. But I almost threw up at the unstinting, uncritical praise of Apple's commitment to accessibility in the article. If Apple is so committed to accessibility, why doesn't Apple insist that all apps that are non-visually-oriented (such as, say, the Amazon Echo app), be totally VoiceOver friendly before being accepted into the App Store?
Why are functions of Apple's implementation of Word still not accessible? And why does it seem that each release of iOS breaks some accessibility features?
Your article made me want to throw up. It is also my understanding that the only reason Apple bothered to deal with accessibility was the result of a couple of lawsuit threats.
I'm really disappointed in AFB's choice for awarding the Helen Keller award and for the way you wrote the article.
One of the worst articles I've ever read in AccessWorld.
John Riehl
Dear AccessWorld Editor,
I would like to see AccessWorld and AFB mobilize readers and supporters to contact Consumer Union and its magazine, Consumer Reports, to urge them to add accessibility to the product ratings. Not only would this make it much easier for consumers with disabilities to evaluate products before making a purchase, I believe that having a powerful ally such as Consumers Union would spur manufacturers to design with an eye to universal accessibility.
Sincerely,
W. Greg Austin
