Jamie Pauls
Using a screen reader is a very different experience from that of a sighted person when it comes to using a computer. Everything from how the information is presented to the way a blind person interacts with their environment using a keyboard rather than a mouse makes communicating between a blind and sighted person challenging at times. If the sighted teacher, whether a trained professional or a friend or family member, is unfamiliar with how screen reading technology works and the terminology used to get that information across, they may not be in a position to help the blind computer user in the way they would like. When a knowledgeable blind person is able to master computing concepts themselves and communicate that information in a clear, concise manner, their services tend to be in high demand.
One man who has been teaching the blind community to use computers with the JAWS for Windows screen reader for many years is Brian Hartgen. Not only does Hartgen Consultancy provide remote training, but they also offer online courses to help blind people become more comfortable using their PCs.
I recently was made aware of an upcoming online course taught by Hartgen on using the Brave web browser and decided to take the course. I have been familiar with his work for years, including the many scripts he maintains that make JAWS an extremely efficient screen reading solution for Windows. I had not taken any of his courses, and so I decided to take the opportunity to both take his class and learn about Brave. I have used Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, and most recently Microsoft Edge, so I was curious as to whether I would want to add Brave to my toolbox. At $60 U.S., the price seemed right and so I signed up for the class.
In the interest of full disclosure, Hartgen was made aware that I would write a review of his course for AccessWorld, and I was not compensated in any way by Hartgen Consultancy for the cost of the class. All of the thoughts below are my observations of Hargen’s course and teaching style, and he has not been given an advance copy of the article before publication.
I found the Hartgen Consultancy website easy to use as it is not cluttered with unnecessary or repetitive information. Whether I chose to use the link in the email I saw regarding the Brave Words course or the link found on the Hartgen Consultancy home page, it did not take long for me to sign up. I quickly received email confirmation that I had been registered for the course along with information about how to join the class.
In the case of the Brave Words course, classes were held on three Wednesdays at 2 pm Central Time where I live, and ran about 90 minutes each, as I recall. The Zoom conferencing platform was used, so accessibility was not a problem.
Presentation Style and Course Format
Upon joining the first week’s class, I was struck by the fact that Hartgen greeted each member of the class individually as they entered the conference room. I showed up a few minutes before start time, so someone entering the class late would not receive this greeting. Once the class got underway, all class participants’ audio was muted, so there were no distractions during Hartgen’s presentation.
After greeting participants live, Harden played a series of prerecorded segments where he discussed Brave and how to get the best use of the browser with JAWS. At the end of each segment, he allowed time for questions from class members. His presentation was so thorough that there generally were very few questions during any of the three classes, but he answered all questions to the best of his ability and even adapted the class content to address questions that came up.
Hartgen’s years of tutorial production and Internet radio broadcasting were evident during the class, as audio was pristine throughout the entire three-week course with no exceptions. I found his JAWS speech rate to be at a speed that was neither too slow or too fast for me to understand. Because all demonstrations were prerecorded, there was no down time while he adjusted JAWS on the fly. Each lesson was recorded, and both audio and text transcripts were provided to class participants within a few days after each lesson. Also, participants were given a password-protected website where they could download class materials at any time. A mailing list was provided where participants of the class could visit with each other and Brian himself.
Content Covered in the Brave Words Course
I was struck by how well-paced the course was. At no time did I find myself getting restless, and I was struck by how quickly each week’s allotted time went by. Because Brave is a Chromium-based browser, the interface felt very familiar to me. Hartgen was thorough in his discussion of installing and setting up Brave as well as some accessibility quirks that a user of JAWS would want to know about. Any accessibility oddities are few and minor, and I have found Brave to be a pleasure to use. While there would be no way to cover every aspect of any piece of software in a three-week course, I found nothing of importance to be left out. If I had, I could simply have asked Hartgen about it on the mailing list.
My Thoughts On Using the Brave Browser
During my three-week study, I appreciated the fact that Hartgen pointed out reasons why he personally chose to use Brave over other browsers. I found that his reasons matched my own, so it was easy for me to stay engaged. Below are some of my own personal thoughts on using Brave which continues to be my default browser even after my completing of the course.
Importing of settings including passwords from Microsoft Edge and other browsers is effortless. Also, password management in Brave is as intuitive as that of other Windows-based browsers.
Brave is highly customizable and the settings menus are straightforward with some suggested work-arounds provided by Hartgen.
It is easy to specify where files should be downloaded, even though a default location has been set. This keeps the default download folder from becoming bloated with files that need to then be moved elsewhere.
Brave provides a media player when streaming audio files that allows the user to save the file to their local computer.
Brave provides a “reader” mode that greatly reduces the clutter on pages that contain news articles. Using JAWS, it is possible to find out the number of lines on a web page. Hartgen demonstrated reading news articles with and without the reader mode enabled, and demonstrated that pages could be reduced from hundreds of lines of text to less than 40. Brave is intelligent enough to strip out social media links, ads, and other “clutter” without stripping away important content. Even more astounding to me, it is possible to leave reader mode enabled for all sites because Brave is smart enough to leave shopping sites and the like intact.
Brave has news, RSS, and podcast functionality built in although that is something that is not of interest to me since I use other applications for those tasks.
Brave is very conscious of privacy, blocking ads and tracking software more aggressively than do other browsers. This makes Brave run much faster and with less of a load on a computer’s resources. As with Reader mode, I did not need to tweak any of these settings since websites of importance to me have not been negatively impacted by Braves privacy settings.
The Bottom Line
A visit to the Hartgen Consultancy training archives page will give you a good idea of the broad range of topics covered by Brian Hartgen. Everything from Windows to specialized notetakers, and any number of audio-related programs of possible interest. You don’t get the email list nor do you have an opportunity to ask questions, but you do get the archives from previously taught classes. The Brave Words course is included in this list.
I found Hartgen’s teaching style to be both thorough and engaging, and his content was presented in an easy-to-access format. For any blind person who needs training in a certain area, or a trainer who needs to teach others, I would highly recommend checking out the available content from Hartgen Consultancy.
