238 - [Tr] VoiceOver 3 [Trailer but free version available]

[Trailer for Members Show] Although this is a trailer for the members show, the trailer contains instructions for downloading a special version of the show by signing up to the ScreenCastsOnline newsletter mailing list.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me, is the amount of functionality and utilities built right into OSX.

This week, I take a look at one of the Accessibility tools provided with every copy of Leopard and Snow Leopard - that's VoiceOver 3. Designed to assist partially sighted and blind Mac users, VoiceOver 3 is the latest version of the hugely impressive screen reader utility for the Mac. With VoiceOver, it's possible to have all the screen elements described and read back to you, using the built in speech technologies. Not to be confused with just Text to Speech, VoiceOver uses the concept of a VoiceOver cursor to highlight individual elements on screen (Text, menus, dock, icons, panels, dialog boxes, pretty much everything!) and have the contents of the VO cursor read back to you. With a multitude of keyboard commands, you're able to navigate the screen and interact with all the elements exposed with VoiceOver.

If you have a Mac laptop with a multitouch trackpad, you can use a new feature called "TrackPad Commander" to control VoiceOver using gestures.

As well as the core functionality, VoiceOver has been significantly enhanced to provide easy Web browsing using Safari with the addition of the new Web iTem Rotor.

Although VoiceOver is aimed primarily at visually impaired or blind users, this weeks show provides an overview of the VoiceOver technology for sighted people and web/app developers to foster an understanding of some of the features and promote the adoption of providing accessibility enhancements in third party apps. The full show covers:

VoiceOver Introduction
Using The VoiceOver Keys
VoiceOver Setup
Navigating using VoiceOver
TrackPad Commander
Web Browsing with VoiceOver
VoiceOver Utility

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