Stop using Jaws for web accessibility testing?

I don’t follow the point of this post. Jaws is the only way that a developer has to surf the web as a visually-impaired user does. Other tools cannot mimic a real experience, the experience of listening to your content being read aloud by a syntethic voice. No online service can do this. I think that the reason should be found elsewhere. First, sighted people generally don’t take care too much of what other people experience, just because they see and they can’t imagine a world without colors and images. That’s a problem of sensitivity and need to experience (or try to experience) what other people feel when colors and images don’t exist. Second, the overwhelming majority of company websites don’t care about accessibility issues, just because accessibility doesn’t fall in their marketing strategy. We want an easy-going way to say “oh yes, I know what accessibility problems are and I’ve tested them!”. Be honest: accessibility arise problems that very few people want to face. First and over all, accessibility means looking at the world with the eyes of people who suffer from disabilities, so it’s a matter of how much we care about the problems of other persons. Are they important to us or are we forced to cope with them just because a law wants so? I’m not criticizing this post, but I’m simply saying that our motivations should be clear to ourselves. Everything else comes second.

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