Re: NVDA in Employment
erik burggraaf <erik@...>
Hi Kelby
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On August 25, 2019 7:39:31 AM "kelby carlson" <kelbycarlson@...> wrote:
I hope this isn't too off-topic. I recently heard an argument that NVDA is bad for blind prospect's in employment because it is the "dumbed down" solution.
That sounds like the blather of some one who recommended commercial screen readers for 20 years and is now having their apple cart upset. I've seen this time and time again and will keep seeing it as long as accessibility is a thing. When some one has to use dirision rather than fact to steer you away from one product and ttowards another, an alarm bell should shreek in your head.
The person arguing this elaborated, saying that NVDA is not customizable/flexible enough (too chatty"),
This is a matter of personal preference, but I can make NVDA do the common things such as punctuation level that I sometimes need to configure.
that it was not able to be scripted as easily,
Now, I have heard argued the other point that NVDA is easier to scrypt than jaws and I subscribe to this view. Consider, there are many more python programmers in the world than jaws scripters. A company can script NVDA in house using their own IT department. Otherwise, the company needs to outsource jaws scripting to an access technology professional. The prices I have seen quoted range from $500 per hour to $150 per line.
it didn't work well with as much proprietary software,
An argument that shows no understanding of access technology trends. It is no longer the purview of a screen reader to work with particular software. In the current and emerging model, an operating system creates accessibility API's that comply with recognized standards. Screen readers provide access using the API's and standards. Software manufacturers are increasingly legally and socially obligated to comply with accessibility standards and implement API's and ffeatures for accessibility provided by the system. Employers are increasingly legally and socially obligated to procure technology hardware and software that complies with accessibility standards so that it can work with access technologies. NVDA has been considered the most standards compliant screen rreader for several years as far as I know,.
and that it wouldn't be allowed on secure environments due to being open source.
Extrordinarily foolish. If open source software is insecure, why is it powering the commercial internet? If commercial software is inherantly secure, why do we need to spend billians of dollars protecting windows against viruses? NVD'S licencing makes it time and cost efficient to install across large networks such as call centre floors holding thousands of computer workstations. If your corporate network is secure, than running NVDA can't possibly be less secure than running say adobe reader, which is a known constantly volnerable commercial product.
So my question is this: how many people here use NVDA for work,
I do. I'm a compuuter programming student working as a web application developer for wholenote media in Toronto. I've experienced some of the things members are saying about programming tools such as long delays using intelisense. Not 30 seconds but finger-chompingly long lag. This is the fault of software developers such as Microsoft for not complying with standards or even properly implementing their own API's. At least, if you want me to consider that there might be something in NVDA causing severe lag in microsoft intelisense, how about giving us full access to xaml designer, rad tools, and unit testing among other things. If ms could say their product was up to snuff, then I'd consider that there's an ineficiency in NVDA. Otherwise, autocomplete works well for me in browsers and in VSCode though I haven't tried in notepadplusplus with the add on. We can talk about it when visual studio becomes truly viable for accessibility.
and is there a notable dilerence in level of usability with JAWS?
I couldn't speak to this. I haven't used jaws since the days of 4.5. I have provided some computer training on jaws systems though and have experienced significant frustration using google chrome, excel 2016, windows 10 mail, and other things. In helping jaws users the last year or so, I've seen an issue where displaying web content poops out. Jaws scripts still have a bent for corrupting themselves and needing to be re-installed. And they still haven't figured out how to deal with issues such as laptops switching video cards for various power profiles and ditching the authorization.
I was at the college last week getting set up for my fall semester classes. When I sat down with my access technologist, a nondisabled college employee, he imediately expressed frustration to me over use of jaws in the college. He told me that in general nvda was working much better on college systems than jaws, nvda is superior at the maths I have to do this semester compared to jaws, and he thought for it's effectiveness, jaws was way over priced. This is a complete turnaround from 2.5 years ago when I was registering for courses. At that time, jaws was everything according to this guy. He was extremely skeptical of NVDA and only implemented it for me because I insisted. He was also dead set against mac and has had to rethink that position too. :-)
I've told the story many times about going into the interview at the call centre back in 16. It looked like they were gung hoe to hire me. Their IT guy that I was working with said, "thank god you really wanted NVDA. Jaws won't even load up on our systems for testing." He also told me they would script NVDA in house using their python programmers. I didn't get hired, but I don't think it had anything to do with equipment and resources.
Hope this helps,
I hope this isn't too off-topic. I recently heard an argument that NVDA is bad for blind prospect's in employment because it is the "dumbed down" solution.
That sounds like the blather of some one who recommended commercial screen readers for 20 years and is now having their apple cart upset. I've seen this time and time again and will keep seeing it as long as accessibility is a thing. When some one has to use dirision rather than fact to steer you away from one product and ttowards another, an alarm bell should shreek in your head.
The person arguing this elaborated, saying that NVDA is not customizable/flexible enough (too chatty"),
This is a matter of personal preference, but I can make NVDA do the common things such as punctuation level that I sometimes need to configure.
that it was not able to be scripted as easily,
Now, I have heard argued the other point that NVDA is easier to scrypt than jaws and I subscribe to this view. Consider, there are many more python programmers in the world than jaws scripters. A company can script NVDA in house using their own IT department. Otherwise, the company needs to outsource jaws scripting to an access technology professional. The prices I have seen quoted range from $500 per hour to $150 per line.
it didn't work well with as much proprietary software,
An argument that shows no understanding of access technology trends. It is no longer the purview of a screen reader to work with particular software. In the current and emerging model, an operating system creates accessibility API's that comply with recognized standards. Screen readers provide access using the API's and standards. Software manufacturers are increasingly legally and socially obligated to comply with accessibility standards and implement API's and ffeatures for accessibility provided by the system. Employers are increasingly legally and socially obligated to procure technology hardware and software that complies with accessibility standards so that it can work with access technologies. NVDA has been considered the most standards compliant screen rreader for several years as far as I know,.
and that it wouldn't be allowed on secure environments due to being open source.
Extrordinarily foolish. If open source software is insecure, why is it powering the commercial internet? If commercial software is inherantly secure, why do we need to spend billians of dollars protecting windows against viruses? NVD'S licencing makes it time and cost efficient to install across large networks such as call centre floors holding thousands of computer workstations. If your corporate network is secure, than running NVDA can't possibly be less secure than running say adobe reader, which is a known constantly volnerable commercial product.
So my question is this: how many people here use NVDA for work,
I do. I'm a compuuter programming student working as a web application developer for wholenote media in Toronto. I've experienced some of the things members are saying about programming tools such as long delays using intelisense. Not 30 seconds but finger-chompingly long lag. This is the fault of software developers such as Microsoft for not complying with standards or even properly implementing their own API's. At least, if you want me to consider that there might be something in NVDA causing severe lag in microsoft intelisense, how about giving us full access to xaml designer, rad tools, and unit testing among other things. If ms could say their product was up to snuff, then I'd consider that there's an ineficiency in NVDA. Otherwise, autocomplete works well for me in browsers and in VSCode though I haven't tried in notepadplusplus with the add on. We can talk about it when visual studio becomes truly viable for accessibility.
and is there a notable dilerence in level of usability with JAWS?
I couldn't speak to this. I haven't used jaws since the days of 4.5. I have provided some computer training on jaws systems though and have experienced significant frustration using google chrome, excel 2016, windows 10 mail, and other things. In helping jaws users the last year or so, I've seen an issue where displaying web content poops out. Jaws scripts still have a bent for corrupting themselves and needing to be re-installed. And they still haven't figured out how to deal with issues such as laptops switching video cards for various power profiles and ditching the authorization.
I was at the college last week getting set up for my fall semester classes. When I sat down with my access technologist, a nondisabled college employee, he imediately expressed frustration to me over use of jaws in the college. He told me that in general nvda was working much better on college systems than jaws, nvda is superior at the maths I have to do this semester compared to jaws, and he thought for it's effectiveness, jaws was way over priced. This is a complete turnaround from 2.5 years ago when I was registering for courses. At that time, jaws was everything according to this guy. He was extremely skeptical of NVDA and only implemented it for me because I insisted. He was also dead set against mac and has had to rethink that position too. :-)
I've told the story many times about going into the interview at the call centre back in 16. It looked like they were gung hoe to hire me. Their IT guy that I was working with said, "thank god you really wanted NVDA. Jaws won't even load up on our systems for testing." He also told me they would script NVDA in house using their python programmers. I didn't get hired, but I don't think it had anything to do with equipment and resources.
Hope this helps,