I really got to tell you. thank you for writing what I wish I could
so alaberately. this email is a beautiful email. It truely explains
all my feelings on what i think the differences are between mac and
jaws particualry.
hey btw can i use this promotional material for blind people to the
mac???
On Apr 13, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Josh de Lioncourt wrote:
John and all,
I'm intimately familiar with JFW, WE, and VoiceOver. I've helped
some others learn to use VO, I've written scripts for JFW
professionally, and I'm an avid fan of Window-Eyes on the Windows
side of things. Based on all of this, here are my thoughts.
I think the transition from Jaws to VoiceOver is more difficult
than the leap from Window-Eyes to VoiceOver. VO shares some
similarities with WE in terms of basic concepts and principles.
That being said, the biggest problem in making the switch is that
Windows screen reader users, Jaws ones in particular, have been
conditioned to so heavily depend on the screen readers
functionality, that they never learn how to use their operating
system the way it was intended, and to think of things from any
other perspective.
You have to go into Mac OSX and forget about much of what you think
to be true in Windows. It's a very different system, and the
screen reader is very different. VoiceOver gives you access to
OSX, whereas Jaws, in addition to this, radically changes the
interface between user and OS. Window-Eyes does this far less,
which is one of the reasons I prefer it over JFW.
As for the tab key, that works the same way in nearly all OS's I've
used, so I have no idea what you're refering to with that. I use
it quite effectively in OSX, though I often like moving around with
the VO cursor instead. It really depends on my familiarity with
the program in question
or a new computer user, learning to use VO will be far easier than
learning to use Jaws or WE. Learning OSX for that matter will be
far easier than learning Windows.
VoiceOver is still in its infancy, however. It has tremendous
power, even for all that, but it does have some limitations. I
would say your suspicion that your difficulty with learning VO is
due to your familiarity with Jaws is dead on.
There is room for improvement with VO, but then again there is with
WE and JFW too. The comparison of VO to programs that have been
around for a decade and more is unfair and not really applicable in
any case. OSX is just a very different beast. With a little
dedication and a contious attempt to avoid letting Windows
knowledge influence you, you can become extremely productive in
OSX, and I see this only improving over the coming years.
As for the NFB...well, don't even get me started. They are out of
touch with reality, and this coming from someone whose girlfriend
is a member. Actually, I think NFB are out of touch with a great
many of their members as well. But that's a whole other debate.
All of the above are strictly my opinions, and I'm sure many will
disagree. I'm confident most VO users will share my sentiments
though.
On Apr 13, 2007, at 7:41 AM, John Heim wrote:
Wow... I totally disagree that voiceover is easy to llearn when
compared to jaws.
I am someone trying to make the transition from Windows to the Mac
and I think anyone who is considering doing the same should
prepare themselves for a struggle.
I am not a windows bigot. I desperately want voiceover to succeed.
For one thing, I don't want to have to ask my employer to shell
out $1000 for another jaws license when the current one runs out.
And I can show you messages from the NFB's comp sci list where I
got into heated debates over their policy supporting jaws. I have
argued that voiceover is proof that their policy is wrong.
However, I think voiceover is not as good as jaws. Jaws is more
intuitive and easier to use. To be fair, that opinion may be the
result of my familiarity with jaws and my lack of familiarity with
voiceover. And some of my problem with voiceover may be the result
of my unfamiliarity with the Mac operating system. I have to learn
how to use the doc as well as voiceover.
But I recently installed orca, this is a new screen reader for
linux/gnome. And I was able to get real work done almost
immediately. The tab key did what I expected it to, etc. Again,
to be fair, gnome may be more like windows than MacOS is. Apple
probably prefers that windows and MacOS are different. The
developers of gnome might have made it windows-like on purpose.
I remember learning to use jaws and I didn't struggle nearly as
much with it as I did with voiceover.
