JAWS homework due 2/28/02

For this homework, you will download, install, and work with a demo of the "screen reader" program, JAWS.

• First, watch the video "Introduction to the Screen Reader with Neal Ewers" at http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/ltde/access/ewers.htm
• You can find a nice tutorial on using JAWS to surf the web at http://www.htctu.fhda.edu/trainings/tutorials/readweb/readwebindex.htm
• Now download and install the JAWS demo from http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/jaws_form.asp
• Don't use your mouse.
• Using JAWS and a web browser visit a the web page for a news organization (you choose, News & Observer, CNN, GoogleNews). Pick a story of interest to you and read it.
• Don't waste *lots* of time but only use the visual components of the display as a last resort. You want to get the experience of navigating blind but don't let some tiny problem prevent you from getting a full experience in the 40 minutes that JAWS will let you use it.
• Now visit another web page, your own, if you have one. Or the CS department home page. Set yourself a goal of finding something specific. For example, you might try to find the phone number for the chairman of the CS department starting from the department home page.
• Write a short report, about one page of text, on your experience. Tell me what pages you visited. What was hard? What was easy? What ideas do you have on how it could be easier? Suppose someone could augment the page with additional information especially for people with impaired vision. What would that augmentation be? How would it help? Anything else you want to say about the experience.
• Send your report to me (gb@cs.unc.edu) as a plain text email message (no formatting or attachments). Save a copy of your message to share with the class at a future class session.