A screen reader is software primarily used by blind or visually impaired people who are unable to see content displayed on a computer monitor.
There are many types of screen reading software, but the two most commonly used desktop screen readers are Job Access With Speech (JAWS) and NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA). VoiceOver and TalkBack are two commonly used screen readers for mobile devices.
How are Screen Readers Helpful?
Screen readers are software that audibly narrates content on webpages or electronic documents such as PDFs.
As previously mentioned, screen readers are primarily used by blind or visually impaired people who rely on audio narration to understand digital content. Screen readers are also used in website accessibility testing since accessibility for blind and visually impaired users is essential to web accessibility.
At Allyant, all our auditors (both sighted and blind/visually impaired) have extensive screen reader knowledge.
Aaron Page, VP of Accessibility at Allyant, is a native screen reader user. He recently shared his story of navigating the Internet as a blind user, including a demonstration of his screen reader narrating a section of the Allyant website.
Although Aaron’s screen reader reads fast, users can customize the reading speed.
Screen Reader Accessibility Testing
Correct coding
Screen readers are critical to web and PDF accessibility. However, websites and electronic documents must be coded correctly to ensure equitable access. For example, a button on a webpage must be coded as a button for a screen reader to recognize it as such. When websites and digital documents are incorrectly coded, screen reader users cannot get the same information as non-screen reader users.
Alt Text
Proper alternative (alt) text is another essential component of web and PDF accessibility. Since blind and visually impaired people cannot visually see images well—or at all, screen readers will read aloud the alt text of images so that these users can understand the contents of images and receive the same information as sighted users. If an image has inaccurate or no alt text, screen reader users will be unable to understand the image’s contents.
Accurate alt text is critical when describing images that add meaning to web pages. Images that do not add meaning to web pages and only serve as visual decorations are considered decorative. Decorative images should have empty alt attributes (alt=””) that tell screen readers to ignore these images so that screen reader users do not need to hear alt text for irrelevant images. All images should have alt attributes, whether the images are meaningful or decorative.
ARIA
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) refers to a set of roles and attributes that make the Internet more accessible for screen reader users. ARIA is used with HTML to provide information that is not otherwise available to assistive technologies, such as screen readers.
For instance, ARIA can ensure that screen reader users know which type of information to enter in a form field by programmatically associating the form field with its visible label.
However, ARIA should only be used when necessary. Developers should always use native HTML elements rather than ARIA whenever possible. Native HTML elements have built-in accessibility features that are more straightforward than ARIA elements.
For example, using the native HTML <button> element is preferred over “role=button” when designating a button on a webpage. Native HTML elements also typically work better with assistive technologies.
A WebAIM survey of more than one million home pages found that pages with ARIA averaged 41% more errors than home pages without ARIA. So, although ARIA generally makes Internet content more accessible, overusing ARIA can hurt accessibility.
How Allyant Can Help
Here at Allyant, we have several native screen reader users (and many others with years of experience) who will happily answer any screen reader questions you or your organization might have. Ensuring screen reader accessibility is essential to web accessibility, so ensure your organization is considering screen reader users when starting your web accessibility journey.
