Being a voice text news reader, News Anchor may become the news reader for the visually impaired. Visual impairment doesn’t always mean blindness, but also those who may have difficulties in reading 10-point text on a computer. By reading the RSS feeds, News Anchor lessens the demands on the eyes as with regular news readers.

But the news room of is not the only user interface element of News Anchor. There are also windows and dialogs needed to manage the feeds and channels – unless you are satisfied by only playing the pre-set channels and feeds. These windows and dialogs should also be usable by those who are low-vision or perhaps using the Mac OS X exclusively via the Voice Over utility.

I’ve done my best in assigning textual descriptions so that Voice Over (an assistive technology of Mac OS X for the visually impaired) can make good use of the controls. However I’m not really familiar with the Voice Over utility and it would be great if News Anchor can be tested how usable it is for the visually impaired. How well can News Anchor be used via Voice Over. What needs to be tweaked so that people who have difficulty seeing is able to use and enjoy news feeds just like to those who have perfect vision.

If you use Voice Over regularly or know anyone who does and want to help test out News Anchor, please let me know. I would like to know how News Anchor can help those who are visually impaired and how can it be improved for their use.

Thanks.