E-Reader Critiques
Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2018 10:02 am
Good morning Team,
Throughout the course of this project, I've already tried several E-reading apps on different devices. I wanted to share what I've found in hopes that it would be of interest. It would be very interesting to hear what other apps you've tried and how they worked for you. Who knows, perhaps we could share some of this information with ePubTest.org someday.
VinVision's EVO-E10, a handheld device. This player utilizes the excellent Ivona speech engine for device navigation and TTS book playback. It is 100% accessible and has great tactile buttons. It, however, seems to have limited support for advanced navigation such as footnotes and clickable items, and doesn't support media overlays in ePub 3. It also seems to make up its own page numbers, whether or not page markers are provided in the ePub 3 document. I'd say 4 out of 5 over all.
Dolphin EasyReader on Android Tablet with TalkBack. This app is totally accessible, and has a nice tab for importing books directly from the Download folder. It offers a clean interface that works well with Android's speech system for finding and clicking buttons. EasyReader stops speaking when TalkBack has something to say, so after clicking Play, you have to tap Next or Previous to keep the speech talking. Navigation is done by Level 1 headings only, and footnotes and links are not clickable. That being said, it reads image descriptions well, and does appear to support page navigation (though I have yet to find a book that's coded well enough to try it). My son reports that it randomly stops reading after a while, though I have yet to experience this (and could be an issue with the device itself). 4 out of 5.
Dolphin EasyReader on Windows 10 with NVDA. This is a fairly well-designed app that closely mimics the feel of the same app on Android. It has a few more options that are quite well laid out. Again, though footnotes appear clickable as links, pressing Enter on them has no effect. Navigation is done by a nice tree view which supports cascading level navigation beautifully. I did have trouble navigating back to the book after utilizing heading navigation, having to return to bookshelf and reopen the book to get back to reading. The read-aloud feature utilizes the TalkBack voice by default, though this can be changed. You also have to select the next section to continue reading with the arrow keys. I've also heard reports of this app being rather unstable, though I didn't experience this myself. Not my favorite app, I'd give it a 3 out of 5.
qRead on Windows 10 with NVDA. Here is an outstanding application with a clean, clear interface. It utilizes pulldowns for navigation while reading, always remembers your position and current book, and is fast and responsive once loaded. It even appears to support clicking on footnotes, though this is difficult to verify fully with the demonstration version. Yes, this seems to be a paid app, but it could be well worth the money. A real pleasure to use, 5 out of 5.
Adobe Digital Editions on Windows 10 with NVDA. Apart from a couple of unlabeled controls, this app was really easy to use. The bookshelf presents as a bit cluttered, but once you get the tabs set to show titles and you stay within the book selection list, all is well. The app opens decently fast and books open quite quickly. Table of contents navigation is by tree-view levels which is great, and page navigation is easy with the "Go to Page" edit box. Once you select an item from the table of contents, you do have to Tab over to the reading pane, but that works every time. A huge bonus here is that the entire book is presented in the pane, without having to click to advance to the next chapter. It was becoming my app of choice until I ran into the documented ePub crashing bug. Often, when ADE attempts to open an ePub book, it will freeze, locking up the entire computer until Windows realizes the app has malfunctioned and gives you the chance to close it. This is catastrophic for NVDA, and it is necessary to invoke Narrator to access the Close option and terminate the application. The best workaround seems to be to downgrade to ADE V3.0, where this bug does not exist. I find this totally unacceptable, giving it a rating of 2 out of 5 largely for this reason.
Rakuten Kobo on Windows 10 with NVDA. Installation was easy, but the app is completely inaccessible. Much worse than Overdrive, which was impressive. When clicked on from the Desktop, it opened a window that appeared completely blank with NVDA. Nothing with standard navigation keys, nothing with the mouse cursor, nothing with screen review mode. I even set it up as an app so Windows could feed it a book directly. The book opened, judging by the window title, but still nothing audible was detectable on the screen. 0 out of 5 for sure.
Redshelf. This just turned out to be a browser app. We're not testing with browser plugins, and so I didn't take it any further. Myself, I'd rather read a book just in the browser itself. I don't have a rating for it, though, as I didn't bother to try it.
Amazon Kindle on Windows 10 with NVDA. Installation and registration was easy, and the app appeared to be quite accessible. However, though Kindle supports the direct importing of Pdf files, it does not natively support ePub. Those have to be first converted to Pdf - which would drastically change the presentation of the title. That wouldn't be terribly suitable for testing a particular book, so I abandoned it without performing enough tests to rate it.
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 with NVDA. For a mainstream app, this reading solution is surprisingly accessible and comfortable to use. In typical Microsoft style, all controls read and can be interacted with well. There is good usage of keyboard shortcuts here, to pull up the table of contents or start reading. The Table of Contents indicates the percentage in the book of each heading, a nice touch. Links to footnotes are clickable, and imbedded links to external resources (such as online web pages) can also be accessed with a press of Enter. After you stop read-aloud, you have to close the reading pane before you can pull up the table of contents which feels a bit clunky, but not difficult to do. This app also loads the fastest over any other Windows app I've tested. In addition, it comes pre-installed, and is completely free to use! I would have to give it a 5 out of 5.
Throughout the course of this project, I've already tried several E-reading apps on different devices. I wanted to share what I've found in hopes that it would be of interest. It would be very interesting to hear what other apps you've tried and how they worked for you. Who knows, perhaps we could share some of this information with ePubTest.org someday.
VinVision's EVO-E10, a handheld device. This player utilizes the excellent Ivona speech engine for device navigation and TTS book playback. It is 100% accessible and has great tactile buttons. It, however, seems to have limited support for advanced navigation such as footnotes and clickable items, and doesn't support media overlays in ePub 3. It also seems to make up its own page numbers, whether or not page markers are provided in the ePub 3 document. I'd say 4 out of 5 over all.
Dolphin EasyReader on Android Tablet with TalkBack. This app is totally accessible, and has a nice tab for importing books directly from the Download folder. It offers a clean interface that works well with Android's speech system for finding and clicking buttons. EasyReader stops speaking when TalkBack has something to say, so after clicking Play, you have to tap Next or Previous to keep the speech talking. Navigation is done by Level 1 headings only, and footnotes and links are not clickable. That being said, it reads image descriptions well, and does appear to support page navigation (though I have yet to find a book that's coded well enough to try it). My son reports that it randomly stops reading after a while, though I have yet to experience this (and could be an issue with the device itself). 4 out of 5.
Dolphin EasyReader on Windows 10 with NVDA. This is a fairly well-designed app that closely mimics the feel of the same app on Android. It has a few more options that are quite well laid out. Again, though footnotes appear clickable as links, pressing Enter on them has no effect. Navigation is done by a nice tree view which supports cascading level navigation beautifully. I did have trouble navigating back to the book after utilizing heading navigation, having to return to bookshelf and reopen the book to get back to reading. The read-aloud feature utilizes the TalkBack voice by default, though this can be changed. You also have to select the next section to continue reading with the arrow keys. I've also heard reports of this app being rather unstable, though I didn't experience this myself. Not my favorite app, I'd give it a 3 out of 5.
qRead on Windows 10 with NVDA. Here is an outstanding application with a clean, clear interface. It utilizes pulldowns for navigation while reading, always remembers your position and current book, and is fast and responsive once loaded. It even appears to support clicking on footnotes, though this is difficult to verify fully with the demonstration version. Yes, this seems to be a paid app, but it could be well worth the money. A real pleasure to use, 5 out of 5.
Adobe Digital Editions on Windows 10 with NVDA. Apart from a couple of unlabeled controls, this app was really easy to use. The bookshelf presents as a bit cluttered, but once you get the tabs set to show titles and you stay within the book selection list, all is well. The app opens decently fast and books open quite quickly. Table of contents navigation is by tree-view levels which is great, and page navigation is easy with the "Go to Page" edit box. Once you select an item from the table of contents, you do have to Tab over to the reading pane, but that works every time. A huge bonus here is that the entire book is presented in the pane, without having to click to advance to the next chapter. It was becoming my app of choice until I ran into the documented ePub crashing bug. Often, when ADE attempts to open an ePub book, it will freeze, locking up the entire computer until Windows realizes the app has malfunctioned and gives you the chance to close it. This is catastrophic for NVDA, and it is necessary to invoke Narrator to access the Close option and terminate the application. The best workaround seems to be to downgrade to ADE V3.0, where this bug does not exist. I find this totally unacceptable, giving it a rating of 2 out of 5 largely for this reason.
Rakuten Kobo on Windows 10 with NVDA. Installation was easy, but the app is completely inaccessible. Much worse than Overdrive, which was impressive. When clicked on from the Desktop, it opened a window that appeared completely blank with NVDA. Nothing with standard navigation keys, nothing with the mouse cursor, nothing with screen review mode. I even set it up as an app so Windows could feed it a book directly. The book opened, judging by the window title, but still nothing audible was detectable on the screen. 0 out of 5 for sure.
Redshelf. This just turned out to be a browser app. We're not testing with browser plugins, and so I didn't take it any further. Myself, I'd rather read a book just in the browser itself. I don't have a rating for it, though, as I didn't bother to try it.
Amazon Kindle on Windows 10 with NVDA. Installation and registration was easy, and the app appeared to be quite accessible. However, though Kindle supports the direct importing of Pdf files, it does not natively support ePub. Those have to be first converted to Pdf - which would drastically change the presentation of the title. That wouldn't be terribly suitable for testing a particular book, so I abandoned it without performing enough tests to rate it.
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 with NVDA. For a mainstream app, this reading solution is surprisingly accessible and comfortable to use. In typical Microsoft style, all controls read and can be interacted with well. There is good usage of keyboard shortcuts here, to pull up the table of contents or start reading. The Table of Contents indicates the percentage in the book of each heading, a nice touch. Links to footnotes are clickable, and imbedded links to external resources (such as online web pages) can also be accessed with a press of Enter. After you stop read-aloud, you have to close the reading pane before you can pull up the table of contents which feels a bit clunky, but not difficult to do. This app also loads the fastest over any other Windows app I've tested. In addition, it comes pre-installed, and is completely free to use! I would have to give it a 5 out of 5.