[Nfbmo] JAWS with Windows 10 question

[Gary Wunder]

Hello, Roger. The time may come when this is not an issue, but I think for
now it is safe to say that any system that echoes back to you what it wants
you to do using audio while at the same time listening for input is
difficult without a headset. Right now I am dictating to you, but I am using
a noise canceling headphones so that information from the speaker is not
easily heard by the microphone. Strange as it may sound, you are not looking
for sensitivity in a voice recognition microphone. You don't want the
television in the next room to be interfering with what you are dictating.

The long and short of it is that I do recommend a headset. It should be a
noise canceling model so that if one chooses to use a speaker for JAWS or
Narrator or whatever the screen reader may be, at least the chance of
outside interference will be minimized.

I believe that if you are going to give instruction to this person, you
better use a screen reading solution that you understand inside and out. One
of the reasons that people are disappointed with speech recognition is not
that it cannot recognize what they say but that it cannot handle all of the
navigation that people want. If you need to hear a line repeated, you need
to know the keystroke for that or you need to have some bridging system
between the speech recognition product and the screen reader that will let
you offer a command such as say line or speak line. There are such systems,
but they cost quite a bit of money, and they come with a learning curve. I
would not normally mention the learning curve except that too many people
believe that speech recognition means that you have harnessed up Mr. Data
from the Starship Enterprise. For many of us what is lacking is not only
good keyboarding skills but a good sense of what our screen reader will do,
the keystrokes necessary to do it, and, if there are five ways to do a
thing, why there are five ways and which one should be used in a given
situation. Having a computer you can talk to won't solve that learning
issue. If you don't understand a word that is spoken, you have to be able to
navigate to that word and then invoke a command to spell it. With most word
processors and screen readers this means that you would use the control
right arrow until you reach the word, and then you would use the say
character function to hear the first letter and the right arrow key to hear
the rest of the letters spelled out. Even if you use speech, you need a way
to tell it to go to that word and then to spell it. So, whether you are
talking about muscle memory or verbal memory, you still have to figure out
how to get the information off the computer screen and into your brain. Of

If you would like to talk about this personally, give me a call. Just so
that I'm not misunderstood: I think speech recognition software is
wonderful; I think it can be made to work with screen readers; I think it is
wonderful to integrate speech recognition software into one's daily routine;
I think it is possible for people to completely control their computer using
speech, but learning how to do this is not trivial, and it is not
inexpensive.

Warmly,

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Roger Crome via
Nfbmo
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 12:23 PM
To: 'NFB of Missouri Mailing List'
Cc: Roger Crome
Subject: [Nfbmo] JAWS with Windows 10 question

Hello everyone,
I am trying to help someone set up a computer that he just purchased.  It
has Windows 10, and I was able to get Cortana activated.  I was trying to
operate the computer using Cortana and realized that Cortana is listening to
the narrator.  I was thinking of getting JAWS for this guy but I am
concerned that there will be an issue.  Is there someone on this list that
utilizes both Cortana and JAWS?  If so, do you have to use a headset?

The man never learned keyboarding, and I'm trying to get him started with as
few keyboard commands as I can.  My hope is that this will come with the
comfort of learning.

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

Roger Crome
Mineral Area Chapter


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