Window-Eyes Wide Shut

Microsoft’s Accessibility Blog reported that Ai Squared and GW Micro have merged, and that with the merger the new company will continue to develop and support the Window-Eyes for Office offer.  In which anyone who had purchased a copy of Office, from 2000 to the present 2013 version, could download a copy of Window-Eyes for free.  This being the first time I’d heard of the program, I decided to test it out.

The installation is a bit clunky, and it seems ironic that a company that is targeting the visually impaired makes little effort to make the fonts within the dialogue boxes larger than they typically appear with any other software.  But, I suppose they figured, hey, the program is going to read the information and options to the user anyway, so why bother.  The problem I encountered is that the computerized female voice is very difficult to understand and has that 1996, “shall we play a game” choppiness that doesn’t respect punctuation.  Other companies, such as Apple with Siri and Google with Google Now, have done a much better job approaching natural speech patterns.

Once installed, which of course requires a re-boot, there is a set up process for the user to check preferences, like whether you want each individual key read out when typing or just the word in its entirety.  Thankfully, there is also a setting to slow down the speech, but there’s nothing to test it on, other than adjusting the speed again and listening to the number being read, “thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.”

After finishing the set up process, I launched Word to see how it worked.  I have to say, my desktop computer is a little over three years old, has either a first or second gen i5 processor, 8 gigs of RAM, and is running Windows 7.  It’s not going to set benchmarks, but it’s no slouch either.  Window-Eyes is so slow, it was reading dialogue boxes I had closed ten or fifteen seconds before, and never caught up.

Labeled for Re-use

There was no way I had the patience for this.  I felt a little like Dave disconnecting Hal when Window-Eyes had only gotten to telling me “67 percent” on the uninstall before I cut her off abruptly by clicking the force shutdown button and re-booting the computer, silencing her for good.

Obviously this program is better than nothing and is perhaps suited for someone who is closer to totally blind.  I tend to think about the world visually, so my default is to struggle to see something, not sit back and have it read to me.  At the very least, a more interactive experience where I control when and where the reader reads, would be preferable. 

There has to be a way in which visual sensors, audio sensors, and artificial intelligence can be combined to provide a better user experience for the visually impaired (or any sensory deficit for that matter)).  Could a Kinect-like device, and a Nest-like device, and Google Now type of AI, work together, so the computer knows it’s me by seeing me, loads my preferences to enhance my visual experience, but also allows me to ask questions, like could you launch that program and read me the document?  With all of these possibilities coming soon to your television and thermostat, with maps, location, and social already enhancing our daily lives via cell phones and tablets, Window-Eyes seems almost archaic.  I mean, dictation software is better than this.

I guess I should be encouraged that there are companies devoted to accessibility, but the ones devoted to doing no evil or just raking in the cash seem a bit farther along in actually making my life easier.