Greg Lopez gives us a basic introduction to Talkback, the built-in screen reader for Android devices. Download Talkback for your Android device via the Play Store by clicking here.
Apps
An Introduction To NVDA: Installing Add-ons
NVDA is a free alternative to screen readers like Jaws and Window-Eyes One of its features- in fact, the one I’ll be covering today- is extensibility. So, how is NVDA extensible? Through add-ons, which are packaged zip files with an .nvda extension that contain the necessary files to add or modify the functionality of NVDA. So, let’s discuss how to download and install add-ons, as well as how to manage them afterward.
Safari is no longer alone in the iOS-verse, make room for Google Chrome
While Apple is definitely making strides toward squashing those pesky bugs in Voiceover for iOS8, the infestation around Safari still remains rather strong, especially when it comes to focus issues.
This gave me a mission, to find another alternative. Let’s face it, a mobile device needs to be able to browse the web. What kind of a mobile device can’t these days? Even though Safari works most of the time, there had to be another option for those situations when it didn’t.
I explored several options and discovered that the Google Chrome app for iOS is extremely accessible and actually very nice to use.
The accessibility is amazing! Not only does Voiceover tend to read everything, but the browser is fast and page element navigation works fully. HTML5 multimedia content such as Youtube videos and audio content from our own podcasts play right inside the browser. Add in the Google voice search feature and you have a really nice alternative to Safari.
Check out his quick overview of a few things you can accomplish with this really nice cool pick.
Nova Launcher Is The Android Customizer’s Dream, Allows For Notification Badges And OK Google.
Within the depths of the Google play store, there exists a staggering amount of launchers, which allow for the customization of your phone’s home screen. Just as car enthusiasts can debate the interior of which car they like best, so can Android users have a heated discussion on which launcher fits their perfect needs and esthetic desires.
The official Microsoft Outlook App Designed For iPhone and iPad.
In this episode, James Oates reviews Microsoft Outlook for iPhone and iPad. He demonstrates the email client and calendar features. He shows us how to access files on cloud services, open them with additional apps, and send them as attachments. He then proceeds to show how to send and view messages from your contact list. Finally, he walks us through the settings for the application. This is an incredibly complex and powerful application which will prove useful for many users of iOS.
Windows Phone8.1 (Part III): Music, Netflix, and Tweetium:
In this episode, James Oates demonstrates how to stream music and play a radio station using an Xbox Music Pass subscription. He shows us how to play a movie on Netflix and pin a favorite TV show to the start screen. Finally, he reviews the accessibility of the popular Twitter client, Tweetium. Throughout the episode, James is relying heavily on Cortana, Microsoft’s personal assistant. Since Cortana is integrated into the Music and Netflix applications, it makes the experience quite simple.
90 Days with NVDA
Introduction
As a visually impaired Windows user, there’s quite a few options out there when it comes to screen reading software for you to choose from… JAWS, Window-Eyes and System Access might be the best known of the commercial screen readers on the market, while in the open-source space there’s one screen reader most visually impaired users have heard of… NVDA, or Non-Visual Desktop Access. While JAWS and it’s brethren are carefully designed, well tested and well supported by their respective creators, they also generally are a bit expensive, especially when factoring in the software maintenance agreements that keep these screen readers up to date. On the other hand, NVDA is a high-quality, open-source and most importantly, free screen reader that I’ve used exclusively for the last 90 days and would highly recommend to Windows users looking for an alternative to the commercial screen readers.
Installing NVDA
When it comes to installation, NVDA is quite straightforward to install, with an installation wizard that walks you through the process with speech, even if no other screen reader is installed on your system. Basically it’s agreeing to the license, clicking a few buttons and clicking Finish when it’s done. Dead simple… and you’re back to your normal routine.
Using NVDA
The experience with NVDA is a bit different than the commercial screen readers, as there’s no special display driver required to make things accessible. NVDA uses the built-in accessibility frameworks in Windows to provide the information it needs to provide spoken feedback of what’s on screen at the moment. What this means is that in some cases, applications that may not have been very accessible under the commercial screen readers might become accessible under NVDA. It’s not always perfect, but I’ve had some applications that I thought were inaccessible using a commercial screen reader become useful to various degrees under NVDA. Your mileage may vary, so don’t be afraid to test out the accessibility of your favorite application.
So, what works well with NVDA? Here’s a short list of applications I use that work quite well, and that you might find useful:
Google Chrome
Mozilla FireFox
Mozilla Thunderbird
Skype
Audacity
PuTTY
WinSCP
There’s more than just these applications, but these are applications I use, and have found to be quite accessible. Unfortunately, not all applications will work with NVDA, but it’s not due to something with NVDA itself, but the fact that whomever develops the inaccessible application didn’t use any of the accessibility frameworks that Windows or NVDA supports, thereby making the application difficult to use by the visually impaired. This isn’t a problem exclusive to NVDA, but it’s common enough to preclude visually impaired Windows users from using some Windows applications.
NVDA and Plug-Ins
Extensibility is a great thing when it comes to screen readers, and NVDA has a modular plug-in system that adds additional functionality to your NVDA installation. Yes, the commercial screen readers are extensible as well, but it’s a bit less intuitive to add extra functionality to them. With NVDA, it’s simple as downloading a prepackaged add-on, double click, and NVDA handles the rest, even offering to restart so the plug-ins you installed are ready to use. There’s everything from add-ons to enhance your favorite applications to speech synths for better sounding spoken feedback and beyond. It’s up to you which plug-ins you want installed, so go ahead and experiment… NVDA also offers an easy way to remove those pesky plug-ins that you don’t need anymore.
Conclusion
If I had to end this article in one sentence, it would be this: NVDA is a high-quality, free screen reader for the Windows platform worth installing. To expand on that, NV Access has done a quite good job with NVDA, and I strongly encourage you to try it out. participate in the community to make it better and donate if you can afford to do so. Happy accessible computing!
Windows10 For Phones Is Unlikely To Support Third Party Screen Readers.
Microsoft announced yesterday that desktop applications will only be supported on devices that have displays of 8inches or above.
Be My Eyes – Helping Blind See
Introducing a new application for blind and visually impaired users of iOS devices. “Be My Eyes: delivers as promised. I have used it, and it is amazing! Here is a description from the developer:
Summary of Windows10 Press Briefing.
What did we learn from Microsoft’s Windows10 press briefing? Let me summarize the event for those of you who have a life and don’t have the time to watch a more than two hour event. Windows10 is coming to PC’s later this year as a free upgrade. Microsoft’s personal assistant, Cortana, is built into the operating system and is voice activated. Many of the features available currently with Microsoft’s Speech Recognition software are now built into Cortana as well.
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