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Accessibility: Assistive Technologies

Screen Readers

Students with visual impairments use screen readers to access websites and other text-based systems.  Screen readers can output information through audio or braille devices.  Screen readers may also be used by students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.  The W3C standards outline how screen readers should interact with websites, and it is important that we follow these standards whenever possible.

There are a number of free screen readers you can install if you are interested in better understanding how screen readers interact with websites.  Here is a short list of some of these:

 

WebAIM frequently surveys those who use screen readers.  The survey provides helpful information about what tools and accessibility features screen reader users are using. See the 2021 survey.

Screen reader demos

 

 


Screen Readers and Links

There are specific requirements when constructing links to make them accessible.  It's helpful to know a little about how screen readers work to understand these requirements and to remember them.

Rather than reading a full screen left to right, top to bottom, most screen readers use the page headers to navigate first read and then jump link to link in the section. This helps them "scan" a section to find relevant information before reading the section.

In Springshare products, screen readers read links in order—left to right, top to bottom—using only the linked text. Due to this, links must make sense out of context.  Often, none of the surrounding text is read.  

Note: The order in which a screen reader reads a page is set by the page's HTML.  In non-Springshare products, the reading order may be different.

For example, here are the links from a guide, as a screen reader reads them (these links come from the content in the boxes, not the content in the guide's banner or the guide banner tabs):

watch this video

compression sportswear articles

research

Hidez

compression suits

compression suits

according to the BBC

Can you tell where those links go?  What type of information do you think you will get from the link?  

Go to the sample guide and read the page.   Is this what you expected to see based on the links?  Are you surprised by what you see when you click the links?  Are you surprised by the order the screen reader read these links?