Hi Brian,
Thank you for providing this context.
What concerns me about your example is even greater.
Just how does a member of the general public, finding they must use a
screen reader for any number of reasons, even learn they have such an
option as that switch?
Karen
On Tue, 16 Aug 2022, Brian Buhrow wrote:
hello. Having participated in the debate with Microsoft about narrator, let me see if I
can provide a bit of context. When Microsoft began putting a real effort into Narrator, there
wer those of us who were concerned that it would put Freedom scientific out of business and,
thus, potentially, remove accessibility choices for blind users, especially for folks who were
currently employed using JAWS or, at the time, GW Micro. Exhibit A was, and is, Apple with
VoiceOver. If you want to use Apple products with access technology your choice is, well,
VoiceOver. If it doesn't work for you, well then, tough on you. That's also true of Android
with Talkback and Brailleback. Yes, Brltty works on Android, but it relies on the access
provided by Talkback and Brailleback to get its data, so if Talkback and Brailleback can't see
it, it isn't visible nonvisually.
It takes a lot of effort to make a good screen reader and it takes even more effort to
keep it running well. The argument ran like this: if Microsoft put a huge amount of effort
into getting Narrator working well, would they continue to provide the hooks and data Freedom
Scientific and NVDA needed to make their products work? And, what if Narrator was deemed good
enough by Microsoft, but didn't work for folks who were trying to hold down jobs, but JAWS and,
at the time GW Micro, couldn't continue making their products function because they weren't
getting what they needed from Microsoft? what we said was we didn't want Microsoft to work on
Narrator at the expense of continuing to develop and share their access API's with third party
screen reader providers.
While it's true the accessibility scene hasn't played out exactly as we described it in
terms of the time frame we laid out, it is true that, over time, accessibility options for
Windows users are dwindling. Case and point, if you purchase the tablet version of Windows, or
the stock home edition of Windows, by default, you cannot use any screen reader other than
Narrator on that installation unless you flip a magic switch in that installation to enable the
full Windows experience. In addition to allowing third party screen readers, that switch also
allows the installation of unsigned software outside of the Microsoft store. Microsoft claims
they will never disable the ability to flip that switch, but the fact that we are one switch
away from not being able to use the screen reader of our choice on Windows, is, in my view, an
erosion of access. Remember, there was a time when Microsoft said it would never release a
Windows version 11.
So, while it may be that our message was mis-interpreted, and we may have not stated it as
well as we should have, the goal of the message was, in fact, to expand accessibility choices,
not to diminish them.
-Brian
