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JAWS

Preserving Our History

July 29, 2014 by Chris Hofstader 6 Comments

Introduction Recently, I wrote an article called “Job Access With Bugs?,” in which I explore some of the generally accepted notions around access technology for PWVI. That article came as part of my ongoing attempt to record the history of the screen reader in the years following 1998, when I joined Henter-Joyce as Director of… Read more about Preserving Our History

Filed Under: Personal Essay, Technology Review Tagged With: a11y, Accessibility, Blazie Engineering, BNS, Dean Blazie, GW Micro, Henter-Joyce, History, JAWS, Ted Henter, Window-Eyes

Job Access With Bugs?

July 13, 2014 by Chris Hofstader 10 Comments

Introduction For years, I’ve heard anecdotal reports that JAWS, the world’s most popular screen reader, has more bugs, is less reliable, more unstable and of a generally poorer quality than some of its competitors. In that same period, starting in 1998 and continuing until today, I have never seen a single bit of quantitative evidence… Read more about Job Access With Bugs?

Filed Under: Personal Essay, Technology Review Tagged With: a11y, Accessibility, JAWS, Quality, Screen Reader, Window-Eyes

Remembering GW Micro

May 13, 2014 by Chris Hofstader 5 Comments

Introduction Over the past few weeks, those of us who follow such things have heard two major announcements from GW Micro, the first announcing that they had decided to start selling consulting services and the second announcing that they had been acquired by AI Squared, the Vermont based publishers of the market dominant low vision… Read more about Remembering GW Micro

Filed Under: Personal Essay Tagged With: Access Technology, Freedom Scientific, GW Micro, Henter-Joyce, JAWS, NVDA, Rant, Window-Eyes

Screen Reader Failure: Innovation, Deterioration, Despair

July 29, 2013 by Chris Hofstader 26 Comments

Eight days ago, I wrote an article here called “The Death of Screen Reader Innovation” and posted it on Saturday July 20, 2013. For a variety of reasons I didn’t expect this article to be much of a hit. I posted the item on a Saturday, typically a slow day for traffic on this site,… Read more about Screen Reader Failure: Innovation, Deterioration, Despair

Filed Under: Personal Essay Tagged With: Accessibility, Despair, Employment, failure, Freedom Scientific, innovation, JAWS, NVDA

The Death Of Screen Reader Innovation

July 20, 2013 by Chris Hofstader 65 Comments

On the Monday of Thanksgiving week 2004, I walked into my St. Petersburg office for the last time as a Freedom Scientific employee. I had, at that point, been at the helm of the FS software engineering department for six years but, as Lee Hamilton, then CEO of Freedom Scientific told me that day, I… Read more about The Death Of Screen Reader Innovation

Filed Under: Personal Essay Tagged With: Accessibility, failure, Freedom Scientific, innovation, JAWS, screen readers

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