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There's a handy piece of software called Dragon Dictate, or the newer
version, Dragon Naturally Speaking. Happens to be included in the new
WordPerfect Office Suite. Naturally Speaking appears to be light-years
better at word recognition than Dragon Dictate was. It's not just for
the visually impaired, either. Those of us with tendonitis, carpal
tunnel, and other repetitive-stress injuries, or who'd like to be able
to "dictate" to the machine while our hands are flipping through system
specs, playing with the applications we're documenting, etc., are other
likely users.
Virginia J. Link
Technical Writer mailto:linkvi -at- dwd -dot- state -dot- wi -dot- us
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lisa Higgins [SMTP:lisarea -at- LUCENT -dot- COM]
> Sent: Thursday, July 02, 1998 7:21 AM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Visually impaired technical writers
>
> So then, Hutchings, Christa is all like:
>
> ><...> It's hard enough sometimes to get them to explain things to
> > someone who can see and play with the gadget.
>
> Of course, it's tougher. But then again, crossing the street, grocery
> shopping, and many many other things are also tougher. But I think
> you might be surprised at how adaptable people are. I worked with a
> blind system tester not long ago, and he was able to do his job
> autonomously with some very minor accommodations. I've been racking
> my brain since the original post for the name of the software he
> used, but I'm getting a fast busy and can't access that right now. It
> was a voice emulator with some sort of audio cues that indicated
> windows and stuff. It's all fuzzy now, although I will get back to
> the original poster if I remember what this was called.
>
> Regardless, this guy did his job and did it well. The accommodations
> were minor and very reasonable. He didn't require any handholding, as
> far as I could tell. And this guy had only been blind for about five
> years. I've known several people who have been blind since birth, and
> I can't even begin to imagine how they do what they do. There used to
> be a little blind girl who lived down the street from me, and this
> kid, at age seven, found her way around almost the entire Monty
> Python's Complete Waste of Time CD. All I did for her was read what
> it said on the screen. She did everything else (of course, she wasn't
> very good at the pinball and whack-a-mole games...) I took her to the
> zoo once, and she named and described every animal we saw. To her
> parents' horror, she taught herself to ride her big brother's
> bicycle. I'd hire her right now if she weren't only ten years old.
> And if I hired people. Which I don't. But I digress.
>
> At any rate, it seems as though it would be impossible to do a lot of
> the things that we do every day if we couldn't see, but that is a
> reality for a lot of people. I can't describe how they do it unless
> it's just plain magic, but they do.
>
> Lisa.
> lisarea -at- lucent -dot- com
>
> &^~~~
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