I am getting in to this a little late but I hope to encourage you to have your friend try out...

http://vinuxproject.org/

Which runs on a live CD so your friend could try it without changing the current setup till she determines if it is acceptable.

Also I found http://the-brannons.com/edbrowse/philosophy.html which describes a project by a blind programmer. I do not know if 'edbrowse' comes on the live CD or not.

I talked off-mike with our blind interviewer/member and recall that he said he preferred Linux because the GUI was only run when he needed it. Most times he could do everything he wanted at the command line.

Unix, and now Linux, were designed to be able to tie programs together to accomplish things their author never dreamed they could be used for. That is why we get things like 'dradio'...

DRadio is a Danmarks Radio netradio, podcast, and TV player. It is a terminal based frontend to MPlayer that collects the available channels/podcasts for convenient browsing.

http://www.thrysoee.dk/dradio/

Such combinations abound in the non-Windows world.