At W4A today there was a demo given of WebAnywhere which is a free screen reader that can be accessed from any PC anywhere. Produced as part of the University of Washington and the WebInSight project from the Univeristy of Washington the software will be fully available in MAy 2008.
WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card.
All you need to do is switch a PC on, plug in your headphones, execute a couple of keyboard commands so that you open up the WebAnywhere home page, switch it on and away you go. What sets WebAnywhere apart from other text-to-speech software, free or otherwise, is that it can be used on any website rather than only sites where that software is installed.
This is fantastic on so many levels:
- Enables people who can’t afford costly screen readers to access the web
- Enables people with slight sight problems who don’t yet use a screen reader but may want audio support to have it
- You can use it on other PC’s and laptops if you’re traveling or unable to access your own i.e in libraries, schools and colleges
- Enables people with reading problems to get reading and audio support
- People browsing in a second language can use it to help understand written text
- Is an additional tool in the web developers toolbox when testing websites for accessibility
The software is also open source which is a huge bonus.
Visit their site to see WebAnywhere being demo’ed.
Adrian Higginbotham | 23/04/2008 at 10:12 | Permalink
always good to see new free to use tools and open source activity that adds to the knowledge of the overall community but this side of the market seems to be growing rapidly of late and I fear we’re in danger of giving those who stand to benefit most, the individual new to the technology, too much choice and too little information about which products are appropriate. Which free product shall I use? NVDA the open source screenreader that requires no installation (and can be run from a a USB drive or CD), System Access to go, (recently made freely available to anyone via the accessibility is a right (air) foundation), Thunder (which has been free to individuals for some time) but which has recently been made free to organisations too. or maybe I only need a website screenreader such as the one mentioned here, or Firevox, the free plug-in for the Firefox browser that serves much the same function. and as they are the ones I can think of from the top of my head it seems likely there are others. Anything that means we don’t need to pay $1000 or £500+ for access to a computer is of course welcomed but too much choice and too few unique selling points might just lead to confused users vulnerable to salesmen (and women too) and nothing chaging. It would be nice to see a bit more collaboration between freeware and open source projects leading to fewer but more comprehensive and capable tools rather than all this duplication of effert.
Henny | 06/05/2008 at 16:16 | Permalink
Hi Adrian,
I appreciate your concerns and have also followed comments about WebAnywhere on BCAB. I agree that the devlopment of screen reader tools certainly does seem to have been growing a fair amount recently creating wider choice and with it the possiblity of confusion. I do think there are many positive aspects to having such choice however as long as there is enough information out there that correctly describes all of these products. As you so rightly point out .
In many cases I’m sure the questions “Which product shall I use” will be answered by what environment you are working in. While a screen reader on a USB or CD such as NVDA may be the right solution for a user with no PC of their own it wont necessarily be for people in developing countries where access to even this basic form of storage is not readily available. A solution such as WebAnywhere could fill that gap. On a personal note I feel that we have a responsibility to help facilitate people accessing the web in developing countries and this hardware / software free solution seems highly attractive, especially with the one laptop per child initiative.
Like you say the market is becoming increasingly swamped but again this may lead to future collaboration rather than dilution as vendors team up, many of the newer screen readers on offer are still in their infancy after all. Overall I think your point about ensuring that there is clear understanding on what each solution offers is key. Wikipedia a page listing screen readers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers which would be great to expand. It is also a piece of work that organisations such as RNIB, AbilityNet, Becta and others could also work together on.