I am concerned that ’screen reader’ is an inappropriate technological description for this valuable Web Anywhere experiment.

Firstly, the term suggests more applicability than just reading web pages. For example, Web Anywhere doesn’t read any buttons on a browser as does a conventional ’screen reader’.

Secondly, it is actually providing an alternative voice rendering of the HTML elements within a browser, not reading from on, or under, the screen.

Not that these comments should detract from the value of the product, I just like the term ‘web page reader’ better.

Thirdly, that term is potentially more meaningful to Vision Losers who don’t know, or care, yet about screen readers. They just want some way to read a web page in a browser that may be out of their personal control.

Susan

An alpha release is available at webAnywhere at http://webanywhere.washington.edu .

This software promises significant increases in accessibility of web pages from public venues, such as libraries. The demo and initial version are, indeed, looking good.

Of course, there must eventually be sufficient server infrastructure to support the remote reading of web pages for potentially thousands of simultaneous users. However, scalability of server architectures, as well as the limited population of users, can overcome any barrier to wider spread use.

Current screen reader users will easily adapt to WebAnywhere, as one more option to accompany a more familiar portable general package, such as NVDA. The biggest barrier for us are context switching to alternate tables of keystrokes and interaction protocols.

webanywhere can be a killer app for public education about assistive technology. For free, it can show how visually impaired people make productive use of web content. One unfamiliarity for sighted users is the reliance on keyboard rather than mouse, using audio rather visual information pathways. Also problematic for many people is “synthetic voice shock”, the initial repellant sense of harsh robotic voices, and the lack of confidence in ability to hear through the voices into the web content.

And, isn’t it great that more web page designers will no longer have an excuse for not testing their pages for usability by persons requiring assistance? Ha, ha!

All this said, I still have to learn how to shut off the voices as I just got 4 speaking things going at one time on the above page. Yikes!

Great job, web insight project at U. Washington! It’s now up to the rest of us to continue your technology adoption process and to step in as public educators about assistive technology and web accessibility.