My first impressions of VoiceOver.

Luke Yelavich themuso at themuso.com
Fri Apr 29 14:09:42 UTC 2005


Hi all.
I ordered a copy of Mac OS X 10.4 a week or so ago, and it arrived 
today. I am writing this message to give some of you an idea of what the 
screen reader is like, and how accessible everything is.

First off, the installation is spoken, however it is quite slow. This is 
partly due to the fact that it is being read off a DVD, and also due to 
the fact I installed it on a second hand G3 powermac that I have. You 
simply turn on VoiceOver by pressing Command + F5. The command key is 
like the Alt key on a PC keyboard. In fact, I am using a PC keyboard 
with the mac, and the command key is in fact the Windows key used to 
bring up the start menu.

I installed the OS as normal without speech, and activated speech once I 
was into the desktop.

One of the biggest problems, is you have to use the Ctrl + Option keys 
to do a lot of your voice navigating, especially websites. Imagine 
having to press Ctrl + Option to read every line/paragraph on a website. 
It is not fun and not erganomic.

So most of your navigation is done with the VoiceOver cursor, and 
practically no changes have been made to the interface of the OS to 
allow navigation with tab and the arrow keys, like in Windows.

Feel free to email me with any questions or if you want anything in 
particular checked out. I would be happy to do so.

Luke
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