Screen readers
What is a screen reader?
Not all users of ICT are fully sighted. Some people have slight visual impairments and others are fully blind. This does not mean however that they are unable to use ICT, nor that they should not be considered when creating resources for later use in ICT.
One means available to people with visual impairments to use ICT is a screen reader. This is a piece of software which reads out everything on the screen to the user. Some software only works within web browsers and others work fully with a range of other software.
Microsoft™ has incorporated a screen reader into the Windows XP operating system, called Narrator. It can be found under the Accessories – Accessibility menu. It is a very simple screen reader and really only manages the more basic of tasks, reading menus and toolbars.
Jaws and Window Eyes
In the Windows platform there are two main screen readers used by the blind and visually impaired community. They are: Jaws, produced by Freedom Scientific and Windows Eyes, produced by GW Micro. Both of these products allow the user roughly the same amount of functionality. If you have Word Processing software on your machine, these will both allow you to use it through audio commands from their software. They both integrate well into the general desktop of Windows and work well with Internet Explorer to allow web browsing.
How it works
When viewing websites using a screen reader, all the links on the page are read out first, after a summary of the page. So a user might browse to the home page of the BBC news page and hear the following:
'This page has 124 links, there are 39 graphics and three forms on the page.'
It would then begin to read the links on the page. If the page has a series of articles and links which say ‘more info…’ then the screen reader will read out 'more info full stop full stop full stop'. This is why it is important to consider all users when creating your own resources, as links with the text ‘click here’ and ‘more’ mean nothing out of context.
Disadvantages
There are other downsides to the software.
- Fully comprehensive screen readers are often very expensive.
- Purchasing screen readers is an after spend for people to put out after buying the hardware and standard software
- Using the software is often incredibly complex, Jaws and Windows Eyes have hundreds of keyboard combinations to learn for the user to get full use out of them.
- When upgrading the hardware to the next operating system you might have to go through the whole process again.
Useful links
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Details about JAWS software and a free 30-day download of the software.
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Connect Outloud is designed for the beginning to experienced blind or low vision computer user to access the Internet through speech and Braille output. This software is based on our popular JAWS® for Windows technology and offers additional access to the Windows XP operating system. Also, Connect Outloud version 2.0 has even more support for the Web, including support for Internet Explorer 5 and 6, and support for Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 5.0.
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Download the Connect Outloud software.
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The people at WEBaim have put together a simulation of how a screen reader sounds and given you some tasks to complete too.
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GW Micro has listened to screen-reader users and incorporated many of their suggestions into one powerful product: Window-Eyes. The result? A wide variety of speech features and the flexibility needed for running many of today's most advanced Windows applications.
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Details about the Windows Eyes software and a free 30-day download of the software.
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The people at WEBaim have put together a simulation of how a screen reader sounds and given you some tasks to complete too.
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Royal National Institute of the Blind information about screen readers and links to other resources.
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A few screen readers articles and links from accessibility expert Joe Clark.
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Cicero effectively takes your computer and scanner and turns them into a reading machine for people with visual impairments. Printed text documents are placed on the scanner and can then be translated into speech, Braille or simply held as a text document which can be adjusted, saved, edited and printed out.
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Hal Screen Reader provides intelligent screen access for visually impaired computer users through speech and Braille.
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Supernova includes full screen reading in speech and Braille with integrated magnification and works on any of the supported Windows platforms.
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WebbIE is a web browser for blind and visually-impaired people, especially those using screen readers. It is based on Microsoft's Internet Explorer to ensure that a maximum of sites work with it. It allows you access to the vast majority of webpages and tries to present all the information there simply and easily so you can explore and use the web fully.
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Texthelp Systems Ltd. has developed a number of software products including accessibility software, dyslexia software and text to speech software.