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Why is LUWRAIN different than other accessible solutions?

Image of a list of advantagesWe highly respect all existing software in the area of accessibility technologies. It truly changes the world and opens a lot of opportunity for wide range of blind and visually-impaired people. In the meantime, we think that there are still some problems which aren't covered with existing solutions. These advantages of LUWRAIN are considered as the most important:

  1. Everywhere. LUWRAIN does the same things regardless the operating system which a user is working on. The level of accessibility features is very different among various platforms. In particular, on GNU/Linux it is significantly lower than on Microsoft Windows. LUWRAIN uses Java and this eliminates any platform-dependent differences, what is especially important, for example, for Raspberry Pi where Microsoft Windows can be launched only with serious restrictions or cannot be launched at all.
  2. Special applications. There is still a lack of specialized software which the blind needs for everyday tasks. LUWRAIN suits well for their implementation in a portable way. For example, for most of blind people a books reader is very important. Students need a well-organized editor for TeX and Lilypond, specialized e-learning solutions can better utilize features of such standards as xAPI and CMI5.
  3. Comfortable interface. LUWRAIN builds the comfortable user interface specially designed for the blind and increases speed of work. GUI is nice for sighted users, but the blind cannot deal with it in the same way, because forced to do everything only with a keyboard. This results in extra exhausting which can be reduced, if the interface reflects the particularity of perception of the blind. In addition, the LUWRAIN interface opens information technologies for wide range of inexperienced users.
  4. Freedom and no fee. LUWRAIN is free in itself and doesn't imply any fee for other required components including an operating system in the case of running on GNU/Linux. This means that LUWRAIN will cost nothing to everybody.
  5. Security. LUWRAIN doesn't require superuser rights for its work, so there is no risk of any vulnerability. For example, if you are using a website of a bank, a screen reader is the perfect target for malware software, because screen reading software knows everything and often runs with a superuser privileges.
  6. API. LUWRAIN provides a nice API respecting the common design practices. This API is easily understandable for software developers which don't have enough experience of developing software for the blind. Using LUWRAIN they can create a portable application for the blind and visually-impaired. This reduces any barriers between sighted and blind users.

Screen reading software is very important and must be respected anyway, but we assume that it's a mistake to think that blind people can, or even have to, do everything with them only. For everyday work their using is very exhaustive, and we can see a lack of their support on inexpensive systems. The great project, bringing to us a lot of inspiration, is Emacspeak by T. V. Raman. It significantly helps to use GNU/Linux for software developing purposes. We can see now that software developing moves towards GNU/Linux, and blind people could be very interested in it, because it's a way for payed work.


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