On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 12:10 PM, Dave Mitchell wrote:

complexity of doing all of this by ear can be a cumulative waste of time and perhaps an irritant inversely proportional  to one’s  age.

It's funny to hear someone who routinely uses a screen reader say this, but it certainly matches how I've felt many times.  Having to deal with everything via hearing it is just not the same as being able to read it, regardless of the modality for reading.   When I first started out tutoring screen readers they almost drove me round the bend, and I see that happening with my clients who were formerly sighted, too.  I tell them it will be a long adjustment, but eventually you start applying certain auditory filtering much like one used to apply visual filtering.

Also, it's interesting to see how most of them, in the early days with a screen reader, are very hesitant to cut off speech.  With some of the newer synths these things sound almost like a person, and I think ingrained politeness comes to the fore.  It takes a while to get them used to the idea that they can, freely and without consequence or insult, cut off screen reader speech whenever they please.
 
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Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1809, Build 17763  

   Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

         ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore