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Specs

Features

Ease
of Use

Sample Screen

Sample Audio

Road
Test

Title: JAWS (Job Access with Speech) 3.7 for Windows
Company: Henter Joyce, a division of Freedom Scientific
Price: $795
Type of Computer: Windows 95/98, NT 4.0, 2000, or Millennium
Requirements: 30M available hard disk space, VGA or higher resolution video
adapter (Super VGA 256-color recommended), compatible sound card or voice synthesizer.
Availability for Trial Run: A 40-minute free demo can be downloaded from the Freedom Scientific Web site.

Features
•Will talk immediately during the user-friendly talking installation.
• Installs an enhanced, multi-lingual software speech synthesizer, "Eloquence for JFW" that works with today's standard sound cards. (more natural sounding speech.)
• Supports the Java programming language
• Both audible and visible Lotus Style pop-up menu system.
• Logically designed Speech pad allowing single-handed operation.
• Built-in Auto-speak Macro keys that make decisions and read the screen automatically.
• Current version will not run properly unless the display is set at 256 colors
• Numerous voice configurations.
• Outputs to refreshable Braille displays, which display the Braille version of each line the screen reader is reading
• Good technical support: callers wait three minutes or less
• Comes with a Basic Training Tutorial on cassette tape (seven hours of step-by-step instructions) to jump start the user.
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Ease of Use

Clear, complete user documentation	Help menu is provided.
Easy to set up program	Demo download took no time at all and the program instantly began to run after the computer had been restarted
Easy to exit from program	File --> Exit
Audio is effective	Seemingly typical mechanical voices but the ability to change pitch and volume creates more pleasant sounding voices
Choice of voices	Eight voices; a variety of pitches and ages

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Sample Screen:

Sample Audio: click here Back to Top

Road Test: Upon starting JAWS, the "mini-menu" appears on the screen and the program begins identifying and reading the parts of the screen immediately. When a window is opened, JAWS identifies the label on the title bar and then waits for the next keystroke action.
1. The "mini-menu" provides the user with some of the following choices: (a) telling the program how you want it to run, automatically or user activated, (b) specifying the voices for many different tasks (see sample screen), (c) determining the language (American English, British English, French, Spanish, etc.), (d) listing of an extensive Help menu and (e) providing the option to exit.
2. For actual use, for instance in a word processing file to make a choice for the font size, the user presses CTRL + SHIFT + P. To say the character formatting, INSERT + F must be pressed. CTRL + SHIFT + E will list the spelling errors.
3. Using Netscape, there is another whole series of commands. For instance, to read visible text, press CTRL + INSERT + DOWN ARROW. To hear a list of links on the page, press INSERT +F7. JAWS provides a list of 25 keystrokes specific to Netscape.
4. I found this program to be very powerful and almost too much to grasp in one sitting. I am not surprised to read that the company offers four day training classes costing $750 per person, held at the headquarters in Florida. On site training is also available for a maximum of 8 people to the tune of $6,000, which would appear to be a good investment considering all that is to be learned. When trying to follow the reading of text on the page, I became lost on the webpages and began to tire of whatever voice I had chosen. Granted, the blind user would not be following along so this program might not be the best choice for a low vision computer user.
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