"Dueling Windows", CSUN Conference, Los Angeles, CA, March 1996

We decided to release this report because there is no "official" report and we have had many inquiries.  This document was compiled from notes taken separately by two people from Henter-Joyce, Inc., Dan Clark and Ted Henter, who were in attendance.  The "duel" involved seven different Windows screen reader software products performing identical tasks in the Windows 3.x environment.  Each machine used was identical, being an IBM Pentium with 16MB of RAM, many thanks to IBM for providing them.  The software on each hard drive was identical, with the exception of the windows screen reader which was installed by each vendor prior to the duel.  Also, IBM used a different program for internet access, Web Explorer, whereas the rest of the participants used Netscape.  TeleSensory added a PowerBraille display during the afternoon presentation, and although several other screen readers support Braille display devices, the other participants did not use one.  During the presentation, a large screen projector displayed for the audience what was on each vendor's screen.  Also, the persons doing the presenting could neither see their monitor, which had been placed on the floor in front of their table facing the audience, nor the large screen.  

Each question was asked by one member of the panel of each vendor, one after the other, and the panelists rotated the asking of questions among themselves.  Additionally, the order of which vendor went first was rotated with each question, so that no one vendor was able to benefit from always hearing the other vendors' attempts to answer.  The panelists consisted of the following people:

	Mark Nelson, Foundation for Blind Children, Phoenix, AZ.
	Greg Meise, Missing Link Technologies, Lenexa, KS.
	Kerry Malone Cook, Southern Oregon Goodwill, Medford, OR.
	Jay Stiteley, The Seeing Eye, Inc., Morristown, NJ.

The software companies represented were, in alphabetical order:
Artic WinVision 2, ver 2.16, Paul Hendrikson presenting.
Berkeley outSPOKEN for Windows, ver 1.2 vb26 public beta, Josh Miele presenting.
GW Micro, Window-Eyes ver 1.03, Mike Lawler presenting.
Henter-Joyce, Inc., JAWS for Windows ver 1.2, Ted Henter presenting except for Netscape, which was done by Glen Gordon.
IBM Screen Reader/2, ver 2.0, Guido Corona presenting.
Syntha-Voice Window Bridge, ver 2.21, Neil Cooper presenting.
TeleSensory Screen Power for Windows ver 1.47B, Scott Duncan presenting.


Overview:
There were a total of 15 questions which were asked over the course of the day.  There was one question which no screen reader could do at this time.  It involved Netscape, and went something like this:  If hypertext links are on a page, but are not currently visible on the screen, can you read them without hitting the page down key to bring them into view?  Since no one was able to do this, it is not counted in the tally below.  The screen readers are listed below in order of the least amount of errors.  The panel recommended using the terms "accomplished task", "accomplished task with difficulty", and "failed task".  The scores listed in this report are simply our opinion of what transpired.

JAWS for Windows successfully answered 13 questions, and answered one question with difficulty involving reading columns in Netscape.

Screen Reader/2 successfully answered 11 questions; they answered 2 questions with difficulty (one in Access, and one in Excel), and failed on one question in Web Explorer.

outSPOKEN for Windows successfully answered 8 questions; they answered 5  questions with difficulty (one in Access, 3 in Excel, and one in Netscape) and failed on one question in Excel, where they had to reboot the computer.

Window Bridge successfully answered 6 questions; they answered 2 questions with difficulty in Netscape, and failed on 6 questions, two in Access (one where they had to reboot the computer), three in Excel, and one in Netscape.

WinVision successfully answered 6 questions; they answered one question with difficulty in Excel, and failed on 7 questions, two with Access, three with Excel, and two with Netscape.

Screen Power for Windows successfully answered 3 questions; they answered 4 questions with difficulty (2 in Excel, one in Netscape, and one in Word for Windows) and failed on 7 questions, two in Access, two in Excel, and three in Netscape.

Window-Eyes successfully answered 5 questions and failed on 9 questions, two in Access, four in Excel, and three in Netscape.

We will outline the questions and answers, or attempts to answer, in detail below:



The questioning began with Microsoft Access, a Windows database program.

1.  Use the File Open dialog box in Access to load a sample database file.  Everyone was able to accomplish this task with little or no problems.

2.  The sample Access database was in Table view when opened.  The question was, if you are in the body of the table, can you read the title of the column you are in?

WinVision failed the task.  It was not reading contents of fields as they tabbed through them and could not read the column heading.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task.  They used the mouse cursor to read it.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  It was not reading the contents of fields as they tabbed through them without using the mouse cursor. Were unable to get their mouse cursor to go outside the table to read column header.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  It read the cell contents by moving between cells with TAB key and could read the column header using the mouse cursor.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  It was able to read the contents of each cell and had a special function to read the column header.

Window Bridge failed the task.  It began reading the cells okay, but had a General Protection Fault error and had to exit windows completely and reboot the computer.

Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  Tried exploring and could not find the column header.

3.  Still in Access, the task was to do a query in the database.  Close the current Table view child window, go to the word "View" in the menu bar and press enter to pull down a menu.  The word "Tables" was the first item in this menu and was checked, because that was the view we had just been in.  Go down one to the word "Queries" in this menu and select that with the enter key, then press enter again in the query list box for "DWQuery".  This was a query that the panel had set up prior to the duel.  This pulled up the "Enter Parameter Value" dialog box which had a single edit field labeled "Enter Position" and two buttons, an "OK" button and a "Cancel" button.  The task was to enter in this field "Sales Representative" and when you pressed enter you got the "Enter Parameter Value" dialog box again with another (secondary) input field, labeled "Enter country" which you had to fill in.  The end result is to get a few records which matched the query for "Position" and "Country", as opposed to a whole list of records with all information.

WinVision failed the task.  It could read the dialog when it opened the first time.  Could not read the edit field labels.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  It did not say the word "checked" when going into the View menu and landing on the word "Tables".  It did not read the dialogs automatically, but was able to read the first edit field label with the minus key on the number pad.  Then when they tried to read the label on the second dialog box edit field for "Enter country" it said "no label".  They were, however, able to route the mouse cursor there and read it.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  It did not read the edit field labels automatically.  They tried using their own keyboard command (ALT + SHIFT + N), without success, and thus did not know what to enter in the edit fields.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  It read all of the edit field labels automatically, and was able to use a JAWS command (CTRL + DOWN ARROW) to re-read the edit field labels and edit field contents.

Screen Reader/2 performed the task with difficulty.  It did not read the edit field label automatically when the dialog box opened.  They could not read the edit field labels without moving around.  The TAB  key did read the edit field labels then, but said "no active point" when the cursor was actually in the edit field.

Window Bridge failed the task.  It did not read the edit field labels in the dialog box and therefore did not tell the operator what to enter in each field.

Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  It did not read the edit field labels in the dialog box and therefore did not tell the operator what to enter in each field.  They tried to use navigation techniques and got lost.  Lost the focus on the query dialog box and could not get the focus back there.

The next series of questions deal with the program Microsoft Excel, a Windows spreadsheet program.

4.  The first task in Microsoft Excel was to use the "File Open" dialog box and press TAB to go to the "directories" list box and change to a different directory.  Then press TAB or SHIFT + TAB to go back to the "files" list box and load a file called "invoice".

WinVision accomplished the task with difficulty.  It did not automatically read the labels for the file name list box or the directories list box.  When they got the file open, it did not announce the cell coordinates of the active cell.

outSPOKEN for Windows failed the task.  It read everything in the entire dialog box when it opened.  When they pressed TAB it did not read the labels for the list boxes or edit fields as they moved from control to control.  Then, when they pressed TAB to go to the "directories" list box, they got into an endless loop and had to reboot the computer.  They could not open the file and had to pass.

Window-Eyes failed the task. It was not able to work with Excel and therefore they chose to pass on all Excel questions.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  When the dialog box opened JFW automatically read the title of the dialog box and the label of the File Name edit box. As tab was pressed it read the labels of the file name list box and the directories list box.  It read the directories as they were moved to, and reported "no item selected" when no file was yet selected in the files list box.  It spoke the cell coordinates when the spread sheet was loaded.

 Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task with difficulty.  It used chorded keystrokes on their separate numeric keypad to find things and did not automatically read the edit field labels or directories list box labels.  It did not say "no selected item" in files list box to let you know that no files were selected.

Window Bridge failed the task.  They pressed tab to move between controls and this did not work.  They tried using the arrow keys to move up and down the lists in various controls and that did not work either.

Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  Tried using navigation keys and got lost.  Could not get back to Excel and had to re-boot the computer.

5.  The task was to read the cell coordinates where the cursor was in the Excel spreadsheet called "invoice".

WinVision failed the task.  Tried, but could not do it.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  They had to load the file through File Manager rather than the File Open dialog box, then had to hunt around the screen for the cell coordinates.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  They passed on all Excel questions without attempting them.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  It was able to read the cell coordinates with a single JAWS keystroke (INS + C).  Audience applauded.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task. They used a key combination on their separate numeric keypad to read the cell coordinates.

Window Bridge accomplished the task.  They were able to do it with a keystroke.

Screen Power for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  It was able, after much exploring with navigation techniques, to get the spreadsheet loaded (had failed earlier in this task).  Then needed more exploring to find the cell coordinates.

6.  The next task was to read the text in cells A1 to A6.  This was "Foundation for Blind Children" in A1, with address, phone, and fax  number information in the cells below.

WinVision failed the task.  It was able to move to cell A1, but the operator did not know, because nothing was spoken.  Up and down arrow said UP or DOWN but did not read contents of the cell moved to.  They ended up passing on the question.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  It could not confirm they were in the correct cell because it did not read the cell coordinates when moving around.  It did not track the cell pointer.  Used their reading cursor to review what was on the screen.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  They passed on all Excel questions without attempting them.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  It read each cell's coordinates as the cursor moved from one cell to the next (optional, depending on "Verbosity" level).  It also read what was visible within each cell as the cursor moved from cell to cell. With a separate JAWS keystroke (INS + F2), it read the edit field which contains the formula or overflow data.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  It took several keystrokes to do it, but we did not record it all.

Window Bridge failed the task.  It could not read the text in the cells.

Screen Power for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  They used navigation mode and were able to read what was on the screen, but were not able to say what cell the cursor was in.

7.  The next question was also in Excel.  The task was to move to cell F22 using the "go to" command.  The column was one with a narrow width.  Next, participants had to enter a number which was too long to fit in the cell.  The result visually on the screen is that Excel fills the cell with pound signs.  Then the participants had to read the cell contents and verify that pound signs were there so that they would know that the number was too large to fit in the space provided.

WinVision failed the task.  They were not able to read the data in the cell.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  It was very verbose in the "go to" dialog box.  It did not confirm that they were in the proper cell nor did it track the cell pointer.  After entering the data, they searched for the row label "22" and then read across that line to find the pound signs.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  They passed on all Excel questions without attempting them.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  JFW said "go to" when the dialog box was opened.  When the coordinates were entered and the enter key was pressed it said the cell coordinates landed on to confirm the new position.  The numeric data was input, the enter key was pressed, and JFW said the new cell coordinates moved to, one row down. The up arrow key was pressed to move to the previous cell and JFW read the pound signs.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  It performed very similar to JFW, did not read the cell coordinates automatically.

Window Bridge failed the task.  It could get to the cell and input the numeric data, but could not read the pound signs in the cell.

Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  It was able to input data in the cell, but was unable to read the pound signs in the cell.

The next series of questions dealt with Netscape, a World Wide Web browser program for Windows.  For this series of questions, Screen Reader/2 used IBM Web Explorer and not Netscape.

8. The question was to open a sample Web page into Netscape and read the URL address near the top of the screen on the web page.  All of the screen readers were able to do this with relative ease.

9.  The next question was "how do you know when an entire Web page has been received?"  Everyone basically went to the bottom of the Web page and looked for the words "document done" on the status line.  All of the screen readers except for one were able to accomplish this task.  Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  They used navigation mode and got lost.

10.  This Netscape question was "how do you know when you're at the top or bottom of a web page?"  Most said they would page down or up until nothing else happened when reading.  Everyone did this with about the same rate of success when they demonstrated it.

11.  The next task in Netscape was to find a hypertext link on a Web page and then select it.

WinVision accomplished the task.  They used a pop-up dialog box, selected the underline feature to search for, started the search and found a link.  Then used a mouse click to go to the new Web page.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task.  They used a pop-up dialog box, selected the underline feature to search for, started the search and found a link.  Then used a mouse click to go to the new Web page.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  They pressed the TAB key and it spoke the link.  However, when they pressed the mouse key to click on the link, it was not actually on the link as they thought it was, so it did not work.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  When the TAB key was pressed, it spoke the link and moved the cursor there.  They pressed enter on the link (or could use a mouse click) and it selected the link and automatically read the next Web page.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  They used the IBM Web Explorer program, had a key to move to the link, and then selected it.

Window Bridge accomplished the task with difficulty.  They had some special keys to find a link, but it did not work at first.  Tried again and it worked.

Screen Power for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  They used navigation mode.  Had to read through all the text to find a link.  Did not have a key or function to automatically find the links.

12.  In Netscape, on a Web page with a form to fill in, find and fill in the Name and Email fields.  The input field boxes were several spaces over from where the field labels were.

WinVision failed the task.  They searched the screen manually for the "name:" edit field.  Their screen showed differently than their speech.  They gave up after trying.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.   While looking for the input field, they accidentally switched to another application in Windows, but then recovered.  They searched for the "name:" field label and found it, but the software did not indicate that the cursor was not in the edit field for them to input data.  They did eventually locate the edit field by moving to the right and were able to input the data.

Window-Eyes failed the task.  They were able to find the edit field label "name:" and put their mouse cursor just to the right of it, hoping to find the edit field, but never did get the cursor into the edit field.  They gave up after trying.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  Used a JAWS keystroke (INS + TAB) and JAWS found the field and said "Name: edit" to let him know the cursor was there in the edit field, ready to enter data.  He typed the data in the first field.  He then pressed INS + TAB again and landed in the second field, the label was spoken automatically, and The data was entered.  The audience applauded.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  They used Web Explorer, not Netscape, and TAB moves between fields and automatically puts the cursor in the edit field where it is needed.

Window Bridge accomplished the task with difficulty.  Read around, pressed many keys, got lost once but did it.

Screen Power for Windows failed the task.  Used navigation mode, got lost, found an edit field, but could not get the cursor there.

13.  In Netscape, read a single column in a multiple column Web page.

WinVision, Window-Eyes, Screen Reader/2, Window Bridge, and Screen Power for Windows failed to accomplish this task.

outSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task.  They have a "read within column" feature.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  Used the mouse cursor to find the spaces between columns and was able to read by going down one line at a time and reading "from beginning of line to cursor".

14.  This question was a Microsoft Word for Windows task.  Open up the spell checker and demonstrate it, then tell how you know the short cut keys for the various buttons in this spell checker dialog box?

WinVision accomplished the task.  Read the entire dialog box when it popped up. Do not have a feature to read all short cut keys in the entire dialog box.  Able to read the short cut keys if they tabbed to the control.  Did not spell the misspelled or suggested word.

OutSPOKEN for Windows accomplished the task.  Read the entire dialog box when it popped up. Do not have a feature to read all short cut keys in the entire dialog box.  Able to read the short cut keys if they tabbed to the control.  Did not spell the misspelled or suggested word.

Window-Eyes accomplished the task.  Read the entire dialog box when it popped up. Do not have a feature to read all short cut keys in the entire dialog box.  They did not demo reading the short cut keys if they tabbed to the control.  Did not spell the misspelled or suggested word.

JAWS for Windows accomplished the task.  Reads and spells the misspelled word, and reads and spells the suggested word.  Was the only one that demoed reading the misspelled word in context, and the only one that had a "hot key help" message that read all the hot keys with one command.

Screen Reader/2 accomplished the task.  Read and spelled the misspelled word and the suggested word.  Able to determine shortcut keys by tabbing to each control.

Window Bridge accomplished the task.  Read the dialog box and misspelled word.  Able to determine shortcut keys by moving to the controls.

Screen Power for Windows accomplished the task with difficulty.  Used explore mode, got lost, was able to recover.

**end of document**

