I'm frigging frustrated and intend venting a bit of spleen here.
I've just bought a PC netbook (a rather nice Samsung NC10), which is pretty good given its obvious limitations. The battery life is phenomenal and the keyboard, even given my fat fingers, is usable, just. I'm pretty pleased with it, but I'm forced to use Zoomtext on its higher powers due to the lappy's tiny 10.2 inch screen. Zoomtext is a bit of screen magnification software, and because I've the level 2 version, includes a degree of speech feedback, which can be used to read whatever the mouse is hovering over, or just to read a text file from start to finish, should that be your wish. I mainly use its AppReader tool, which allows you point a mouse at a thing, such as a paragraph within a web page, and have it read from that point onwards.
Now I'm hardly a coding genius, but I know that Zoomtext is pretty intelligent these days at working out the design of a web page, and reading the bits you actually need. In effect, if there's an advert at the side of a page, and you want to read the middle body text, Zoomtext will not shoot over to the ad. This wasn't always the case. Some of this I know, is down to the design of the page itself, some the browser and I know a lot of work has gone into Zoomtext itself (this is product I like one heck of a lot and can recommend it to just about any partially sighted computer user who can afford it, or who can get it on Access to Work is DSA if you're a student).
I wanted to try out the Google Chrome browser as it is safer to use than Explorer, allegedly, though nothing is as safe as my beloved, ageing Mac, it has to be said. So, on it went. And off it went.
I downloaded a quite simple page, www.mobile-review.com and selcted the English translation, and a piece of news. Whereas Zoomtext would be happy to speak the whole website without issue using MS Explorer, it failed to get beyond the first paragraph, before getting lost and drifting off to the bottom left hand side of the page. Completely useless. I could probably use the Chrome browser at work, since I use a giant 30 inch monitor there, but on the netbook, the issue is somewhat forced. So it Chrome was sullenly de-installed.
I wrote to Google summarising the issue, but I do wonder (time and time again) why access tech users are nearly always regarded as an inconvenience or afterthought by mainstream software developers? One of the glorious things about Apple's Mac, is that the technology needed by a blind or partially sighted people to make it speak or mag up the screen is built into the operating system. its not perfect - I'm using the Zoom feature right now, and it will never as smart or easy to use as Zoomtext - but hey, it means I can use my computer for the same initial cost as a non-partially sighted user. A rarity though, and Apple really can't be congratulated for their iPods which are generally an accessibility disaster area. My suggestion: install Rockbox on your pod, but only if you are have 4.5 gen or older as it won't work at all on the Classic version (as I write). And be very careful, read the instructions and follow them to the letter unless you want a dead iPod.
Another rant, while I'm on the subject of access tech. When I type in "Android" and "partially sighted" on Google, looking for information on any third party apps which may have been written in the area of screen mags or speech for the HTC G1 'Google Phone", why are all the phones which appear simple, stupid, big button affairs designed for the extremely old, or non-technical users. HELLOOOOO developers. Wakey wakey manufacturers. I am not a thickie. i am not an ooohh-aaaaahh phenomenon. I have a very specific problem with my eyeballs, and its a relatively simple technical problem to solve with tried and technology on existing products, not a phone for technophobes.
Just because I'm partially sighted doesn't mean my brain is dripping out of my arse (feel free to send it back to me if it should fall out). Most of the recent pictures on this blog were taken on a Nokia N82 phone, which is a great mobile indeed, and hardly a low tech jobby by 2008 standards. It is, indeed, a phone I like one heck of a lot due to its massive feature set. I would rather eat my own hairy turds than voluntarily give it up for a basic crappy phone designed for me, sorry, errrm, partially sighted people. But I would like my N82 a lot MORE if I didn't have to use a £10 hand held magnifier in order to see it. The alternative to credit crunch solution is mag software, going for the easy going sum of £150. As they say in German, warum? Nokia phones running Symbian actually are accessible with speech and screen mag - at a price - but they are a rarity amongst mobile phones (Samsungs, come to think of it, used to be able to, and still might manage to have their screen fonts scaled, to quite large sizes).
No comments:
Post a Comment