Specialized Testing Software

You may wish to use special testing software, or demonstration versions of screen reading software, to test in an environment similar to how others may use them. Here's a few suggestions:

Test your site using "Bobby" at http://www.cast.org/bobby/". Bobby analyzes web pages, and gives warnings about how the page will appear in different web browsers, including Lynx and Web-TV.
If you don't have access to the Lynx web browser, you can use your telnet program to connect to many Public Lynx Access sites. There is also a site called "Lynx It" for viewing your page as Lynx would see it.
A popular screen reading program is the Henter-Joyce "Jaws for Windows" program. As of this writing, there is a Windows NT/98/95 version available for download at "http://www.hj.com/" which runs for 40 minutes at a time. This should be adequate for testing your pages with a real screen-reading program to detect problems, and also to learn how these programs operate.

Please send comments about this course to Kevin.Lowey@Usask.CA