Leopard looks great. But what if you can't see?
Leopard is Apple's best-looking operating system yet, from its breezy Cover Flow file browsing to the starry-looking Time Machine backup. It's no wonder visual artists love Macs.
But how well does Leopard work for blind users?
"[Vision-impaired] people who use Macs are mostly in the category of, "My boss says we have to use Macs," or "I'm a teacher and that's what I'm stuck with,"" said Crista Earl, director of Web operations at the American Foundation for the Blind.
Among 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, at least 1.5 million use computers, according to the American Foundation for the Blind. To serve this population, Windows machines have traditionally offered more baked-in features and compatibility with third-party software and devices than Macs.
Earl, who is blind, only uses computers running Microsoft Windows. She edits documents in braille and relies upon a screen-reader application to "read" text and links aloud in Internet Explorer and other programs.
However, to serve users such as Earl, Apple has made 17 Universal Access enhancements within Leopard.
Leopard is the first operating system that can be installed using a braille display. It also supports the forms of braille used both for reading and editing. There are enhancements to the VoiceOver tool, which reads aloud text on a page in a male or female voice. Users can now move VoiceOver's preferences from one Mac to another, so they don't have to waste time configuring each new machine. In addition, VoiceOver can recognize misspelled words and jump to chunks of a Web page instead of forcing a user to wait while it reads one word at a time.
Earl said these changes are a step in the right direction, and she hopes to check them out on a friend's Mac. Mac OS X also offers some advantages over Windows for people with limited vision, such as the capability to display the screen in black and white.
"I don't mean I'd give up my Windows computer," she said. "I have work to do. It's gonna take a lot from the last time I saw VoiceOver."
Accessibility features from any vendor are usually more frustrating to use than advertised, Earl added. Part of the problem is that instead of integrating essential tools within their operating systems, Microsoft and Apple have left it up to third parties to fill in the gaps with extra, paid software.
For example, the screen readers within Windows and Mac OS X pale next to applications like JAWS or Window-Eyes. Earl wonders why the tech giants don't just buy one of the better tools, then weave it into their operating systems.
"One of the reasons things haven't gotten very far is that the companies making screen readers are constantly fighting the next battle," Earl said.
Blame the ever-evolving nature of Web site designs. Once screen-reader makers figured out how to make Adobe Acrobat accessible, for instance, Adobe Flash rendered Web pages mute to blind users. Now that more Flash sites work with screen readers, the AJAX coding of the Web 2.0 era poses new challenges.
Both the challenges in making accessibility tools and the market for them are poised to expand. More young people are suffering repetitive stress disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome, while aging Baby Boomers grapple with diminished vision, hearing, and mobility.
People whose hands and arms suffer keyboard fatigue, or worse, can use speech-to-text software that types what they speak. For them, Windows builds in voice-activated dictation and commands. Leopard enables voice-activated commands only. The rich Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance runs only on Windows. For Macs, the equivalent ViaVoice (or iListen, which I haven't tested) are considered less robust.
I find each of these dictation applications awkward to use. Just spend an hour with one for a few laughs as it garbles your speech.
Nevertheless, hardware and software manufacturers appear to be paying more attention to the needs of an affluent, aging population.
"A newcomer to visual impairment tends to expect, rightly, for things to be a whole lot easier than they are," Earl said. "That pressure of lots of disappointed users might make things better for everybody."
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is iListen from MacSpeech. iListen is still
being actively developed and a Leopord compatible version is in the
works.
"Mac OS X also offers some advantages over Windows for people with limited vision, such as the capability to display the screen in black and white."
Windows has offered a variety of high contrast options for visually impaired users for as long as I can remember! (All are high contrast, including plain black and white.)
In the development work I do, I use these options from time to time to make sure we work properly with them.
I think you need to reference a different set of features in your list of advntages over Windows for visually impaired users. So far, your list is made up of things Windows implemented before Apple, quite the opposite of what you were trying to show.
of us blind folks who not only use the Mac, but deliberately
made the choice to switch from Windows. There are many
compelling reasons to do this. First and foremost is the price.
With the mac, it isn't necessary to pay an additional $1100 just
to be able to read the screen. VoiceOver comes standard with
every mac, and is ready to use at a single keystroke.
Another aspect of VoiceOver worth noting is the fact that it is an
integral component of OS X, and not an add on piece of software
like its windows counterparts. This is important to me, because
if something goes wrong with the Operating System, and I need
to do a re-install, I can do this myself and not have to seek out
the assistance of someone with a functional set of eyes.
Finally, the most important factor to consider is VoiceOver's
usability. In many ways, VoiceOver is equal to the Windows
offerings, and in other ways, VoiceOver is superior. I find that
the Mac with VoiceOver meets all of my computing needs which
range from web browsing to podcast production. Is it perfect?
Definitely not. But the same can be said for the Windows Screen
Readers as well. VoiceOver in Leopard is a tremendous leap
forward from the version we had in Tiger, and I only expect
things to get better in the months and years to come.
- You interviewed the wrong people!
- by bbrannan November 3, 2007 12:24 PM PDT
- It stikes me that a story on Mac accessibility should have
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(12 Comments)actually included people who actually use the accessibility
features, not those who have just heard of them but haven't
really tried them since the last version. Crista forgot a category
of Mac users, which our screenless switcher friend bought up:
thos of us, like myself, who switched on purpose to the Mac. Not
because we had to, but beccause we wanted to. More and more
software is becoming usable by blind Mac users, and I only see
the picture improving. Leopard's accessibility with Voiceover is
miles better than with Tiger, and that first version was a
phenomenal first effort. The one glaring bit of software that
didn't have an accessibl alternative yt (a spreadshet) is well on its
way with a program called Tables. An it groks Excl. Is there a
larning curve? Of course there is. Is it perfect? Of course it isn't.
Is it very usable, and can someone actually get useful work done
with a Voiceover-equipped Mac? You bet! But it isn't Wndows,
and it doesn't work the same way that a Windows user might be
used to doing things. That doesn't make it bad or uselss. Quite
the contrary. By the way, it's interesting to note that the AFB
published an article in their access tech ezine some tim ago, all
about how the first version of Voiceover was, wel, awful. It was
full of errors, it wasn't wel researched, and the editor (who wrote
the article) didn't seem awfully interested in the facts. How
about a more realistic article that actually profiles people who
are actually using the Mac instead of peopl who have opinions
based on no more than speculation and bias borne of long-
standing habits?