The voice may sound somewhat robotic and monotone. Experienced users often like to speed up the reading rate to words per minute or more—well beyond what an inexperienced listener can easily understand. It takes time to get used to a screen reader, but once users become accustomed to it, they can race through content at speeds that awe sighted individuals.
Since every language has its own pronunciation rules, the screen reader needs to know which language it should "speak. This also facilitates automatic translation of content. This flags a temporary departure from the previously-specified document language. You can learn much more about choosing and implementing proper lang attribute values in the Document and Content Language article.
Audio interfaces present content linearly to users, one item at a time. This contrasts with the way in which most people use visual interfaces.
Sighted users can scan an entire screen almost instantaneously, comprehending the overall layout, the artistic style, and other macro-level aspects of the content. Screen reader users cannot comprehend these macro-level aspects as quickly. The linear progression through the content from beginning to end is somewhat like automated telephone menu systems which do not reveal all of the options at once.
Users must progress through such systems in a step-wise manner. The insight that audio interfaces are linearized versions of web content is an important one that should guide web developers during the engineering and design process. Despite the linear nature of audio interfaces, screen readers do provide ways for users to navigate content quickly.
One way is to use the Tab key to jump from link to link. This gives the user an idea of where the page links to, and can be a useful way to run through the content if the user is looking for a specific link. A screen reader will also read back other information that may be present on the screen such as menu options etc.
Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7 all include a very basic screen reader that will read parts of the screen out to you. However, due to a number of limitations with this feature, it is not particularly useful for a person who is totally blind. In this case you would still require a dedicated screen reader to use with the computer system. There is also an excellent screen reader built into Chromebooks called ChromeVox.
We are not, however, including more information on these here. The table below provides a quick comparison between the most widely-used screen readers currently available at the time of producing this factsheet. More info clicking in this link: accessibility. My Computer My Way is an AbilityNet run website packed with articles explaining how to use the accessibility features built into your computer, tablet or smartphone.
The site is broken down into the following sections:. Use it for free at mcmw. Many of our volunteers are former IT professionals who give their time to help older people and people with disabilities to use technology to achieve their goals.
Our friendly volunteers can help with most major computer systems, laptops, tablet devices and smartphones. View a copy of this license at creativecommons. My Computer My Way Vision - seeing the screen Hearing - hearing sound Motor - using a keyboard and mouse Cognitive - reading and spelling. Print this page. A screen reader allows people who are blind or visually impaired to use their computer. This factsheet provides an overview of the main screen readers available for people to use with their computer or mobile devices.
It has been written to help people determine which is the most appropriate for their needs and includes summary information about the screen readers built into the operating system alongside other free or commercial products. As with all assistive technologies, no one size fits all, and people may find it useful to try more than one before settling on their preferred tool.
In the UK there are almost 2 million people living with sight loss. Both of these screen readers use a different variety of keys for this kind of shortcut navigation, but essentially they both offer commands to move between lists, paragraphs, headings, images, links, quotations, tables and almost every kind of element it is possible to find on a web page.
With common applications such as email clients, word processors, web browsers and PDFs, it is possible to interact with the text in different ways. Key commands are available that allow very precise navigation through this kind of document.
It is also possible to move through a document one letter, one word, one sentence or one paragraph at a time. With the more advanced screen readers it is even possible to skim through a document, reading only the first few words from each page or paragraph.
Screen readers are also capable of detecting information about the text formatting within a document. The size, style and colour of the font can be revealed to the user when a certain key command is invoked. Information about the location, indentation and formatting of the document is also available. Screen readers are very complex, capable applications. They offer far more than mere assistance with browsing or email retrieval.
A screen reader is simply another interface, a monitor replacement, offering verbal and tactile feedback rather than visual. There are of course difficulties in using an operating system designed for visual feedback with an application that uses speech or Braille, but in the hands of a competent user a screen reader is a powerful piece of software that can be used to carry out most, if not all, computer based tasks.
In the meantime, take a full look at the digital accessibility services that we offer. We believe that creating groundbreaking experiences that make measurable differences in the way people live takes a special type of collaboration.
Our team designs impactful experiences by leaning on the variety of capabilities and expertise within Nomensa to ensure our solution is bespoke to your needs. In this webinar, Will will discuss our natural conversational instincts and how to design for them and how design and technology are together nurturing us to adapt and evolve our conversation expectations.
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