[nfbcs] Questions regarding JAWS and NVDA

[Tracy Carcione]

It seems to me that NVDA would be fine for school, though it would depend on
one's course of study.  I'm thinking, once I retire, I will not buy upgrades
to Jaws, and will use NVDA instead.  It's fine for email, web browsing, and
ordinary word-processing, spreadsheets, etc.  At work, I need Jaws scripts
to access terminal emulation, and I need Jaws ability to use Remote Desktop.
Once I no longer need those things, I don't really need Jaws.
Tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Curtis Chong via
nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2018 11:21 AM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: Curtis Chong
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Questions regarding JAWS and NVDA

Greetings:
 
Speaking first as a rehabilitation professional who trains blind people to
use access technology, I will say that in the training environment, we would
teach JAWS and not NVDA. While NVDA has the advantage of being available at
no cost, it has a major disadvantage of not providing over-the-phone
technical support which is free to the end user. So, in terms of what the
field of work with the blind needs to do, it must continue teaching JAWS and
making it available to rehabilitation clients. Also, in the workplace, there
are many things that JAWS can do which NVDA cannot-not the least of which is
the ability for scripts to be developed to support those pesky applications
which would otherwise not work for a person who is blind.
 
Speaking as a blind consumer advocate, I am intrigued by the growing
popularity of NVDA as a viable screen reader for individuals who have no
funding sources upon which to draw. In a growing number of instances
(consider the integration of the screen reader with the latest version of
Mozilla Firefox), NVDA out-performs JAWS in terms of its ability to work
with Mozilla Firefox, thus causing people to wonder why they should spend
the money to pay for JAWS and keep service maintenance agreements current.
Yes, NVDA's default voice is not favored by some people, but you can get
some really terrific voices from Code Factory for NVDA for around $70 US.
 
In terms of NVDA's use in the workplace, I suspect that in other countries,
it can be found in more employment situations than in the United States.
 
Having said all of that, I would be the first consumer to jump up in protest
if our rehabilitation agencies refused to buy JAWS for their clients simply
because NVDA was available for free.
 
Cordially,
 
Curtis Chong
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jim Portillo via nfbcs
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2018 9:05 AM
To: Jim Portillo <portillo.jim at gmail.com>
Cc: Jim Portillo <portillo.jim at gmail.com>
Subject: [nfbcs] Questions regarding JAWS and NVDA
 
Good morning,
 
I have a couple of questions regarding both the differences and uses of JAWS
and NVDA.
 
 
First of all, does anyone know if NVDA is used much in a work place or even
school (such as college) environment?  Is JAWS still considered to be the
leading screen reader for blind PC users?
 
Finally, in training environments, such as training centers or personal
computer training, which screen reader seems to be preferred these days?
 
 
I'm working with someone right now who has NVDA on his computer but who
would like to learn JAWS because of its wider use in school and work
environments. This is why I thought it would be good to ask.
 
Thanks much.
 
Jim
 
 
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