This Thursday at Change Ted McCarthy from the University of Michigan will be discussing screen reader use among the visually impaired in India and sharing the results of a study conducted last summer in Bangalore, India with Microsoft Research, where he worked with Joyojeet Pal (Univ. of Michigan) and Ed Cutrell (MSR). While the study was largely exploratory in examining the ways in which members of the visually impaired (VI) community use screen reader technologies, the research led to several interesting discoveries, particularly the nature surrounding VI preference for one screen reader software over another, and factors leading to (or preventing) the switch in use between one software program and another. The study focused especially on the two most dominant screen reader programs according to our survey and others, JAWS and NVDA, the first a ~$1000 software (and the most popularly used), and the latter a free and open source program which nevertheless sees far less use by VI persons in India. While the study revealed that piracy was a key factor contributing to the dominance of JAWS over NVDA, it also revealed patterns in the shift in preferences of users over time from "surface" factors such as screen reader text-to-speech quality to computer application support by the screen reader software. The authors show that this may in fact lead to a lower-than-expected adoption of NVDA (the free and open source software) due to that program's strengths and weaknesses relative to JAWS. Ted will discuss the outcomes of the initial research conducted last summer, as well as theoretical frameworks which help to explain the switching phenomenon observed. The results of this research will also be presented at the ICTD 2012 conference this coming March in Atlanta, GA. Ted is a second-year Master's student at the University of Michigan School of Information. He plans to obtain a PhD with a focus on technology use in health care and in developing country contexts. His background prior to Michigan involved an undergraduate focus on cognitive science at Brown University, followed by several years of teaching. Ted will continue to work with Joyojeet Pal and Ed Cutrell to further investigate the use of screen readers in India and elsewhere, and is additionally beginning to explore the use of a mobile app and series of sensors to monitor symptom severity and identify environmental causal factors in patients with syndromes and disorders such as Tourette's, seizure disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and others. *What:* Ted McCarthy on screen reader use among the visually impaired in India. *When:* Thursday, January 12th at Noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, Room 203