JAWS

Hi everyone, and welcome to our webinar, Four Classic JAWS Features That Can Transform Your Workflow.

I'm Liz.

And

So this is just a place where we can engage with you and answer your questions and share training events, training information.

We're going to be providing some power tips.

We're going to be, you know, entering some conversation starters, some questions, just some things to get us all thinking about how we can use JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion more efficiently and some of the features that we're going to be talking about.

All right, so again, this is a private group.

You can request to join and you will be approved and you can start chatting with us right away.

Goodness me.

I hate Jaws sometimes.

They're free for Tim Cook.

He's got a bag full of them.

As far as the kind of history, if you will, of access technology, a big thing that sticks out to me is how screen reading software got started.

Screen reading software, I'm referring to JAWS, job access with speech, or NVDA, non-visual desktop access.

For Windows systems specifically, JAWS got its start back in the late 1900s.

I know.

And it really has evolved since then.

I remember a time when I was back in elementary school and we had the giant box computers that sat on a desk.

And they had a very skeletal, if you will, version of JAWS that you could really only use on the main screen.

And so now to see screen reading software of all kinds, whether it be voiceover for Mac OS or JAWS and NVDA for Windows, and of course, all the other screen readers that have popped up along with them, be able to do everything and then some with computers is a really cool thing to watch happen.

And I was immediately thinking when I heard him say... you know, I've been waiting two years for this software.

I mean, I'm kind of picking up on what you were saying, Dan, is it was a mixture of the JAWS software, but also the scripting being done in order to use the applications.

And that's what was taking so long.

But, you know, having seen people go through this where they've waited up to 18 months for access to JAWS and being stuck with the 40 minute mode, which is a crazy, crime against humanity if i say so myself because you know that's fine for a couple of days but 18 months of that that is torture that really is and it means you can do nothing it means you can do absolutely nothing and the problem is people lay this sometimes at the feet of vespero as they now are called freedom scientific who are changing their name now everything's been changed apparently to vespero i

You'll always be freedom scientific to me.

And to me.

I could say, well, put NVDA on, but that's not going to solve anything either.

No, I still think the initial delay in, oh, well, we need to audit this software that we've never heard of is still absolutely ridiculous because it's a standard.

I've got a tiny screen laptop.

And I'm thinking, how am I going to do this? And I wasn't up on my voiceover or JAWS or NVDA skills back then.

And so I'm thinking, how am I going to do this?

Yes.

For me, I'm a real enigma of that because I have some sight, but I can't use it to work because it's too impactive on me.

I mean, how on earth are we ever going to combat that where the organizations can't work it out and they just go it's too much of a problem get rid and uh you know there are a number of people i'm sure in this same situation the idea of um using be my eyes in the workplace uh i like i like that idea i love the tech that that works with but i know that with gdpr being uh at the forefront of every organization's mind there is no way that they are going to allow anything anywhere near sensitive to go towards be my eyes as you have unvetted volunteers um manning the other end of they are not going to understand that they are there um or what processes there are they're not going to accept that as being appropriate to ensure data security and especially i work with a utility company not the people you pay the bills to but somebody else And they're considered a part of national infrastructure and therefore there is all sorts of extra security implications.

And it was hard enough for them to accept JAWS in the environment.

The amount of questions that we went through with JAWS and Fusion to have that on computers was crazy.

And especially when you start adding in app specific commands, it can get a little tricky and that's okay.

VoiceOver has the ability to do a keyboard echo similar to what we described for JAWS and NVDA and narrator.

It isn't F1 or one or insert one though, it's VoiceOver K for keyboard.

And that's important to know because like I said, it is different, but it accomplishes the same thing.

It has app directories, it gives accessibility ratings, it gives accessibility awards.

You can find audio snippets of how to accomplish a specific task that then will teach you through completing a specific task more about your Mac and more about what is possible.

One other important thing to know about VoiceOver is it does not navigate in the way that JAWS and NVDA and Narrator navigate, it navigates in what Apple calls a grouped navigation style, as opposed to a flat navigation style.

Grouped navigation basically means elements will be grouped together.

You can use the 20 cell display, which is separate, but yeah.

And as far as you know, in regards to JAWS and NVDA, because they have more support, well, I know JAWS does have multi-line braille display support.

Does NVDA, do we know about that at this point?

I think it does.