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Speaking Terms

Blind computer users and screen readers: a page by one of us, for all of us, and for anyone who builds web pages.

This page is plain on purpose. There are no background pictures, no frames, no tables for layout and no blinking anything. My sighted friend Denise checked it for me and says it's black text on a white background, which is exactly what I asked for. It reads cleanly with a screen reader and it prints in large type without any fuss. If you are sighted and find it a little boring to look at, I'm sorry, but you're not really who it's for.

About me
What a screen reader is
What I use
Paying for it
The Web, the good and the bad
Where to find help
Making your home page talk: tips for web page authors (a separate page)

1. About me

My name is Margo Quintanilla. I'm 36 and I live in San Jose, California, with my guide dog, Juno, a yellow Labrador who is smarter than both of my brothers. I was born three months early, and I've been totally blind since I was a baby, from a condition called retinopathy of prematurity. I have never seen a computer screen, and I have used computers every working day for thirteen years.

I learned to program on a talking terminal in college, worked as a programmer for eight years, and now I teach computer classes at a nonprofit center for adults who are blind or losing their sight. Most of my students are over fifty. Many of them are losing their vision to macular degeneration or diabetes and have never touched a computer. Watching a 72-year-old retired machinist send his first e-mail to his grandson, all by himself, never gets old.

I started this page because my students kept asking me the same questions, and because people who build web pages keep asking me, "How do blind people even use the Internet?" This is my answer.

2. What a screen reader is

A screen reader is a program that takes whatever is on the computer screen and turns it into speech, braille, or both.

Speech: the screen reader sends text to a speech synthesizer, which can be a program that uses your sound card or a separate little box that plugs into the computer. It talks. Most of us speed it up until sighted people can't understand a word. I listen at about twice normal speed.
Braille: the screen reader can also send text to a refreshable braille display, a device that sits under the keyboard with a row of little pins that pop up and down to form braille letters. You read a line of the screen with your fingertips.
No mouse. We do everything from the keyboard: Tab, arrow keys, Alt, Enter, and a lot of special key combinations the screen reader adds. This is why keyboard access matters so much.

A screen reader can only read what's there as text. If something is only a picture, like a button made of an image with no description, the screen reader can't tell me what it says. It might say "image" or read me the file name, like "button underscore final underscore 3 dot gif." That's not much help.

3. What I use

People always want to know about equipment, so here's my setup at home. This isn't a recommendation. Everybody is different, and the right choice depends on your job, your computer, and what feels good to your ears and fingers. Try several if you can.

A Pentium II computer running Windows 98.
JAWS for Windows as my screen reader. The other big one for Windows is Window-Eyes. Both have loyal fans. If you can, try both before you buy, at a friend's house, a training center or a blindness convention. (I use JAWS at home and Window-Eyes at work, and I'm fond of both.)
A DECtalk hardware synthesizer, because I've listened to that voice since college and it's like an old friend. Plenty of people are happy with software speech through the sound card.
A 40-cell refreshable braille display, borrowed from work.
A Braille 'n Speak, a little braille notetaker I carry everywhere. I wrote most of this page on it on the bus.
An old 486 running DOS with a DOS screen reader and the Lynx text browser. It's fast and it never surprises me, which is more than I can say for Windows.

For Mac users, there's a screen reader called outSPOKEN. There are also talking web browsers made especially for blind users, like IBM's Home Page Reader, which reads web pages aloud without a separate screen reader. Some of my students start there because it's simpler.

A note on Windows: when Windows first came along, a lot of us were scared of it, because DOS was all text and Windows was all pictures. For a few years many blind people stayed with DOS because it just worked. The Windows screen readers have come a long way, and most of my students learn on Windows now, but I understand the people who kept their DOS machines. I did too.

4. Paying for it

This is the hard part. A screen reader for Windows can cost several hundred dollars to over a thousand. A hardware synthesizer is a few hundred more. A refreshable braille display can cost thousands of dollars, as much as a used car or more. That's on top of the computer itself.

Some places to ask:

Your state's vocational rehabilitation agency (in some states it's a separate commission or department for the blind). If you need the equipment to work or go to school, they may help pay for it and for training. Ask for a counselor and be persistent.
Your employer. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are expected to provide reasonable accommodations. A screen reader is often one.
Your school or college, which may have equipment in a lab or a disabled students office.
Local blindness organizations and service clubs. Lions Clubs have helped a lot of blind people. Ask around.
Used equipment. People upgrade, and older braille notetakers and synthesizers change hands. Ask on the e-mail lists.

5. The Web, the good and the bad

The Web has been the biggest change in my independence since my first guide dog. I read the newspaper every morning now, the same day as everybody else, instead of waiting for someone to read it to me or for the cassette version. I bank. I look up bus schedules. I bought Juno's dog food online last month and it came to my door. I'm on seven e-mail lists. Before the Internet, I did most of that by asking somebody for help.

But the Web can also be a wall. Here's what my screen reader says on some home pages:

"Graphic. Graphic. Link graphic. Link graphic. Link graphic. Welcome to my. Graphic. Link. Click here. Link. Click here. Link. Click here."

That's not a page. That's a locked door with a welcome mat. The good news is that most of it is easy to fix. Almost every problem I run into comes from a handful of simple habits. I wrote them up on a separate page with examples in HTML: Making Your Home Page Talk.

The World Wide Web Consortium, the group that works on web standards, published its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines this May. They are long and a bit technical, but if you build web pages for a living, they're worth your time.

6. Where to find help

National Federation of the Blind and American Council of the Blind. The two big national organizations of blind people. Both have state and local chapters, and both have lots of members who use computers and are happy to help.
Your state vocational rehabilitation agency or commission for the blind, for training and equipment.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, part of the Library of Congress. Free talking books and magazines on cassette, mailed to you, with a free player. If you're losing your sight and you love to read, sign up today.
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, for students who need recorded textbooks.
E-mail lists. There are lists for blind computer users in general, and for each screen reader and notetaker. They're the fastest way to get an answer to "why won't my screen reader read this?" Ask any blind computer user to point you to one.
Me. Write any time. If you're newly blind and scared, or you have a parent who is, I especially want to hear from you. It gets better, and you can do this.

Contact

E-mail: [email protected]

You are visitor number: since March 1998. (The counter's digits are pictures, but each one has its number as its ALT text, so it reads correctly. I checked.)

Last updated: Thursday, September 23, 1999.