Please, don’t assume it works by our design. We have a different view on an application being accessible. The Kindle PC application (menu and dialogs) is accessible with the Screen Reader, the books themselves however, are not. The books (those which the publishers have allowed), are read using Text To Speech provided by Kindle. In the case of other books, the application is still accessible (menu and dialogs), but the books are not at all.
The quality of this speech from the Text To Speech they provide and the lack of control leaves much to be desired. We have expressed to Amazon and Kindle, that screen reader users would like to use their screen reader for speech, Braille, and control of navigation. This current solution, while a commendable effort, is very misleading to say the least. For those of you try it out, I encourage users to try it and then point out your opinions to them directly. Regards, Eric -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:41 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [JAWS-Users] Fw: Introducing Free Kindle Software withAccessibility Features Here is a new and presumably Jaws accessible application. I would prefer a fully portable e-book reading device such as my sighted colleagues have available to them and will probably so inform them, I don't much fancy sitting at a computer for my recreational reading but there may be many on this list who will find this of interest and value. Dale leavens. ----- Original Message ----- From: Amazon.com Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 4:38 AM Subject: Introducing Free Kindle Software with Accessibility Features Dear [email protected] subscriber, Amazon.com is releasing a new version of Kindle for PC that adds accessibility features designed for blind and low-vision customers. Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin is a free, downloadable application for your Windows PC. It provides the following accessibility features: text-to-speech reading with adjustable voice settings, voice-guided menu navigation, large font sizes, high contrast reading mode, keyboard navigation, and accessible shortcuts. With this software, for the first time ever, the entire collection of English language books in the Kindle Store can be read aloud. With over 750,000 English language titles, Amazon offers the largest selection of accessible ebooks. In order to use the text-to-speech feature, an external screen reader program must be installed and running on the Windows PC. The free download is available at www.amazon.com/kindle/accessibility. We welcome your feedback at [email protected]. Sincerely, The Kindle Team © 2011 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, the Amazon a logo, the AmazonKindle logo, Kindle, and Whispersync are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue, North, Seattle, WA 98109. Reference: 18358260 Please note that this message was sent to the following e-mail address: [email protected] For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: [email protected] For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: [email protected]
