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Mark M. Uslan, Manager
Technical Evaluation Services
American Foundation for the Blind
11 Penn Plaza, Suite 300
NY, NY 10001
Tel. (212) 502-7638
email: muslan@afb.net
A screen magnifier refers to either a software program loaded
into a computer's memory that will magnify text and graphics that
appear in most common applications, or a hardware/software system
that does the same thing. The full-featured screen magnification
programs on the market today range in price from $200 to $1,350.
The two screen magnification systems on the market, Telesensory's
SuperVista and Vista PCI, cost $2,495. Additionally, there are
many simple and inexpensive screen magnification programs on the
market that cost under $30 or are available as shareware. The
focus of this article is on the full-featured screen
magnification programs and the screen enhancement features found
in Windows itself.
The first step in selecting a screen magnifier should be to
gather information. The table below presents the screen
magnification programs on the market as of this writing. Each
manufacturer is listed with contact information and information
on their product/s.
Screen Magnification Programs on the Market AI Squared P.O. Box
669, Manchester Center, VT 05255 Phone: (802) 362-3612 Fax: (802)
362-1670 Web site: www.aisquared.com
Product/s: ZoomText Xtra Level I (v.7.01); supports Windows
95/98/NT and DOS. ZoomText Xtra Level II (v.7.01); supports
Windows 95/98/NT, DOS, and sound card speech.
Arctic Technologies 1000 John R Rd., Ste 108, Troy, MI 48083
Phone: (248) 588-7370 Fax: (248) 588-2650 Web site:
www.artictech.com
Product/s: Magnum 95; supports Windows 95/98.
Dolphin Computer Access 100 S. Ellsworth Ave., 4th fl., San
Mateo, CA 94401 Phone: (650) 348-7401 Fax: (650)348-7403 Web
site: www.dolphinusa.com
Product/s: Lunar (v.3.03); Supports Windows 95/98/NT. Supernova
(v.3.03); Supports Windows 95/98/NT and comes with Hal, a screen
reader.
Henter-Joyce, Inc. 11800 31st Ct. N., St. Petersburg, FL 33716
Phone: (800) 336-5658 Fax: (727) 803-8001 Web site:
www.hj.com
Product/s: MAGic for Windows NT (v.6.1); Supports Windows NT and
the screen reader JAWS.
Visionware Software, Inc. P.O. Box 1676, Brookline, MA 02446
Phone: (617) 738-4757 Fax: (617) 566-4812 Web site:
www.largeprint.com
Since September of 1997 the American Foundation for the Blind
has published a series of product evaluations of full-featured
screen magnification programs ( Su and Uslan, 1998; Su, Uslan,
and Schnell, 1999; and Uslan and Su, 1997; Uslan, Su, and Hsu,
1999). While some of the products reviewed have undergone
revisions in the last six months, much of the published
information is still relevant. Other useful references include
the following:
"Enlarging the Windows 95 Desktop: Hints and Tips for improving
Screen Visibility," by John Lodge and published in the December
1998/January 1999 issue of Closing the Gap
Microsoft's web site on Windows 98:
www.microsoft.com/enable/download/ctg98w98nt5.txt A web site on
screen magnifiers:www.plex.nl/~pverhoe.
The next step should be to try out the products. Manufacturers
distribute demonstration disks free of charge and make them
available on their web sites. Since the various programs on the
market are relatively similar, it should not take long to get to
know them and compare their features. Trying out a screen
magnification program is also a good way to test for program
compatibility with your video card. Five features to consider
when evaluating and selecting a screen magnifier are
magnification, color and contrast, locating items on the screen,
ease of use, and synthetic speech capability.
In Windows 95 it is possible to enlarge some, but not all
on-screen items through Control Panel settings. Icons such as
Recycle Bin, My Computer, and the mouse pointer can be magnified
to about two times their original size. Windows 95 also provides
a variety of mouse pointer shapes to help identify it. However,
making these setting changes entails doing so without
magnification. Windows 98 has added more size options for the
mouse pointer and Microsoft Magnifier, which displays an enlarged
(up to 12x) portion of any screen in a separate window. It can be
used to select settings in the Control Panel, enabling users to
make any setting changes with magnification.
Full-featured screen magnification programs offer up to at least
16x magnification and some offer considerably more magnification.
Most can magnify all screen items including the mouse pointer,
windows, icons, and buttons. Some allow for selectively
magnifying a portion of the screen, and some can split the screen
horizontally or vertically, so that one portion is magnified and
the other is not. Some full-featured screen magnifiers offer
"font smoothing," the ability to smooth-out the jagged appearance
of computer graphics and text. Another common feature is
"stretching," the ability to magnify the screen display in the
horizontal direction, which makes a screen object appear wider,
and in the vertical direction, which makes an object appear
taller.
Choosing colors and inverting colors, such as changing from
white on black or black on white is an important feature for many
low vision users. It is also helpful to be able to chose a high
contrast mode where, for instance, black is "more black" and
white is "more white."
Windows 95 provides 27 different preset color schemes for the
desktop and high contrast selections for some on-screen items,
including the title bar, pull down menus, and desktop
backgrounds.It also provides many colorful mouse pointers. It is
possible to set black on white and white on black on some preset
items on the screen, such as text and text background and the
menu bars. Widows 98 provides additional high-contrast schemes
for desktop and application environments. There are also
additional color options for the mouse pointer including the
ability to invert its color to opposite the background
color.
All full-featured screen magnifiers can invert foreground and
background in black and white and most can invert colors in the
Windows environment.
Windows 95 offers some help in finding the mouse pointer. It is
possible to slow it down, use a "sonar" feature whereby a
shrinking concentric circle identifies its location, and activate
a comet-like tail that traces its path. Windows 98 offers several
higher-visibility mouse pointers.
Most full-featured screen magnifiers offer two unique options
for keeping track of where you are on the screen: tracking and
panning. Tracking allows users to jump to a location on the
screen when Windows event occurs, such as the opening of a dialog
box. For example, if the user is three screen displays away from
the center of a text document where a pop-up menu occurs, it is
possible to jump to the location of the menu automatically. It is
also possible to track the text cursor and the mouse pointer.
Panning allows for scrolling through lines of text, or up and
down a magnified page at a preset speed. Using panning it is
possible to read a cramped web page at high magnification with
relative ease.
Using Windows 95 access features requires knowing how to get to
them and how to activate them without magnification. For example,
changing icon size requires going into the Control Panel, finding
and clicking on the Display icon and then the Appearance Tab, and
cycling through the options until the desired icon and size are
found. Windows 98 offers an Accessibility Wizard which greatly
simplifies setting up accessibility options. The user selects
examples instead of having to change numeric values or individual
settings in the Control Panel. If magnification is needed,
Microsoft Magnifier is available.
All full-featured screen magnifiers provide magnification when
selecting features. In general, they also provide shortcuts to
features such as using a keystroke to zoom in or out.
Specialized speech programs for blind users, or full-featured
screen readers, read text and can be customized to read control
buttons and specific items on the screen such as graphical
objects. Users can vary the amount of speech spoken for each
control and change the punctuation level of speech. However,
these programs are quite sophisticated, they can conflict with
screen magnifiers, and they have separate, often complex command
structures. Solutions offered by screen magnifiers include
integrating a simplified screen reader, integrating a
full-featured screen reader, and making sure that an existing
screen reader is fully compatible with the screen magnification
program.
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