now this is interesting

Brian here.

I came across this a few days ago and was just floored. If you read my post a few weeks ago about cognition, this is in the same vein. The University of South Carolina is doing some amazing work with universal design, and this demonstration of the JAWS screen reader is astounding. (Click the red links below).

Essentially JAWS reads text on a webpage, making the webpage accessible to those with vision impairment and while the article implies that a visually impaired person can read this fast, I can't possibly fathom that to be the case. Still, it is a pretty exciting development, and proof that visual impairments are not exactly the debilitating conditions we sighted folks think they are.

Concepts like standardizing browser access keys to develop common shortcuts for users can, when combined with screen reading techologies, make a webpage equally accessible for all users, and allow visually impaired individuals to utilize the internet the same as everyone else. Like for forwarding silly emails, browsing youtube videos at work, and filling out fantasy football lineups.

Anyway, this will blow you away.



It's a letter from the Civil War read by JAWS at an astounding speed. If a blind person's hearing and cognition are really able to process information at this speed, I'm just fascinated by what else they can do that we can't. I've heard that VI people are often able to process things audibly 3 times faster than non VI-people, but this is ridiculous

By the way, I promise to keep the science stuff to a minimum, or at least at a reasonable level. I really hope folks are finding a good balance in the posts between Audrey's developments, research/science of her condition, and our life in general (don't get us started on our landscaping ideas, yikes!).

As always, thanks for reading...