Following up on my earlier post about VoiceOver...

First... VoiceOver and Safari: Screen reading on the Mac | 456 Berea Street, which gives a first impression from a (sighted) developer's point of view. The article also makes the point that buying a Mac Mini (with OSX Tiger) is cheaper than buying a license for JAWS.

The cost comparison glosses over purchasing a monitor and other transition costs (eg. other software) if you were leaving a PC environment, however it does highlight just how expensive screen reader software is - development is expensive and the market is small. Does a screen reader user need a monitor? Well, yes, unless they are 100% blind AND nobody else uses the machine AND they do all of their own technical support, they still need a monitor.

Second... Jason Wong | Voiceover - Day 1, which details the experience of setting up the author's blind father with VoiceOver. If nothing else, read this to be reminded that blind users are just as smart and computer savvy as anyone else. By necessity, they also have to have good memories (blind people can't just grab a writing pad, scribble notes down and refer to them later).

The article concludes that more audio support material is required for new users; as well as observing that many programs and websites are not friendly to visually impaired users.