And everybody have forgoten a screen reader developed in Brasil, named Virtual Vision...

Rui Fontes

the article is interesting and it has good information about JAWS and NVDA.  But it has problems.  It should have said something about Window-eyes because a lot of people used it and it was a good screen-reader.  It helped in development of screen-reader innovations in ways that should have been noted.

But a serious problem in the article is that it gives the reader the impression that there shouldn't need to be independently developed screen-readers if developers of software built accessibility into them.  This is erroneous for two reasons.

First, yes, accessibility should be built into programs and operating systems but we have been better served by screen-readers being developed outside of operating system programmers.  We are much better off having choices when it  comes  to Windows screen-readers.  It is a constantly stated truism that some screen-readers work better with some programs than others.  If Microsoft had developed a good screen-reader from the outset, we would probably only have one screen-reader and even if we would benefit from having more, we wouldn't. 

The article doesn't discuss this at all and the author is evidently completely unaware of the arguments about which is better, one screen-reader developed by the developers of an operating system or what exists regarding Windows.

I think we are much better off as things are. 

Gene

On 7/14/2022 10:06 PM, Laurie Mehta via groups.io wrote:

Hi,

I came across this today and am sharing it here because I think that many here will find it interesting. (Link below my name…)

-Laurie

 

The hidden history of screen readers

 

 

https://www.theverge.com/23203911/screen-readers-history-blind-henter-curran-teh-nvda