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I use NVDA, along with Golden Cursor, a free add-on for mouse control. It works remarkably well. As for games that are 100% accessible, it's hard to think of any examples in the sense of conforming to some standard, though plenty are very, very close. In particular, [King of Dragon Pass](www.a-sharp.com/kodp) and its sequel, [Six Ages](www.a-sharp.com/sixages are accessible on IOS using Apple's built-in screen reader. I mention them because I worked on both. As for other games, check out www.audiogames.net. It's a big community centered on this kind of thing, though most of the games they discuss are custom-made for the blind and, dare I say it, a little less sophisticated.
hi, thanks for that, as far As i noticed, it doesn't display wikipedia content as a readable format. You can test it with open source screenreader NVDA get it from https://www.nvaccess.org/download/ try to use it with full keyboard access, the html part of it need to be readable in linear format just like in browsers, that's why I love html, but it is find if it can work like the older kiwix, where we can press f6 to go to search area, type in keyword press enter, and navigate headings, links, paragraphs easily, or, it would also be great if I can have it in something like ht track format, where there's index.html and I can search/brose from there, I need to learn to use kiwix server or the mediawiki maybe, any good guide? thanks
Hi, no panick. I also don't know you and your background, but I honestly believe with some adjustments life can still be ok.
First, If you're into completely visual stuff (drawing, painting, pictures, etc), I'm afraid they might be almost out of reach for you. By completely visual I mean looking at it is the only way to do them. But anything else is still reachable. You just need to find other ways to enjoy them.
For example, people ask me why I watch wrestling. On paper, it is primarily a visual medium. But they are so much more than that. They still have stories that they tell through their matches. Those stories are usually explained by a commentary team.
Another example: My dayjob right now is as a web developer. Though there are many blind developers now, most people still cannot imagine blind people writing code. But code is just a string of characters (just like what I'm writing now), as long as I have a screenreading software, I can program as well as I can post here.
So you see, you just need to find workarounds to do most things. For starters, you may want to take a look at this https://www.nvaccess.org/. This is a screenreader I am using. This will be the key for you to still use a computer.
In summary, it will not be easy. But I believe there are ways to eliminate the most unpleasant aspects of blindness and still enjoy most things in life. But as you said you'll still have surgery in two days. Good luck on your surgery!
i would strongly advise against getting JAWS. they capitalize on selling overpriced software to the disabled. NVDA is a free open source screen reader that was developed by a couple of blind guys. its roughly as popular as JAWS and the two are nearly interchangable. unless you want to make a career specializing in accessiblity JAWS is unnessisary. learning the basics of NVDA is definately a good idea for anyone who wants to make sure the sites they make are accessible.
another problem with blowing your budget on JAWS is that it would only cover blind people. there are a lot of other types of disabilities out there. i would imagine that creating a website that can be navigated entirely using only a keyboard is even more important than making your site screen reader compatable. there are a lot of people out there that don't have the motor-control to use a mouse, some of them don't even have hands.
if you are really interested in learning accessilibity your best bet is Deque University. For about $300 USD per year you can get access to all their courses. the courses aren't perfect. they only really cover the basics. but they are easier to follow than most courses and give you a good foundation for accessiblity. it should suit you well if you aren't looking to specialize in accessiblity.
once you have finished with the Deque stuff you should be ready to write the IPPA certification exams to get some certifications in accessiblity. the exam fees + the deque university subscription will probably come out to cost a little more than $600 but it would probably be easy to talk your employer into paying for it. its a useful set of skills to have.
edit: also, if you are going to use NVDA you should try to use some of that budget to donating $100 to them or something. they are a non-profit doing really important work.
Good Day Adaptive Technology Instructor here:
Mac OS systems are good for Blind individuals in general but may be more expensive then what you or your friend is willing to spend. Windows based systems have Windows Magnifier for Screen Magnification along with Windows Narrator that is a Screen Reader built into the Operating system similar to Zoom and Voice Over in Mac OS systems. You can get a good Screen Reader that is more advanced then Windows Narrator called NVDA link provided here (https://www.nvaccess.org/). If you want Industry Standard then go to Freedom Scientific Jaws but NVDA is free and does many of the same things. If your friend is using Linux or Unix I would have to research that more but that should help your friend.
And test with screen readers! You don't need to pay $1k for JAWS anymore. There are free screen readers.
Test with NVDA on Windows or Linux or the built-in VoiceOver screen reader on the Mac. You can find 95% of screen reader errors without JAWS.
Not mentioned yet and I may be biased, But computer literacy is important if not required in today's world and mainstream screen reader software for desktop is terribly expensive($400+ every year or two for an updated version of JAWS). If you run Windows, Look into installing NVDA, for linux, use fedora or talking arch, If they own a smartphone, Talkback for android and the build in equivalent for Iphone. If your son is able to learn these tools early, he will be able to function online like a sighted person and can function independently in most cases.
JAWS was originally released in 1995, while NVDA started development in 2006. JAWS started before the Windows OS offered accessibility APIs (like MSAA) to programmatically understand what was on the screen, so JAWS has a history of creative solutions to "get the job done", at any cost.
For example, JAWS installs a custom display driver which it can use to scrape raw graphics data (via OCR and other methods) to gather information from programs that don't expose any information over the OS accessibility APIs. Going above and beyond like that isn't an easy feat for JAWS's developers to code and maintain, so I'd say that explains the cost to a degree.
NVDA came into the picture after the Windows MSAA accessibility API was introduced, so it tends to do things more "by the book", which in my opinion leads to it finding bugs that JAWS may employ a workaround for.
But both are completely separate, complex, mature codebases that hundreds of thousands of people rely on. If you're a developer, it's worth testing to make sure your code works in both (if you can only pick one, I'd suggest NVDA). If you're trying to decide which one you'd prefer for personal or work use, you can try either for free. NVDA is 100% free, and JAWS has a demo mode.
I don't think NVDA is a registered non-profit in the US, unfortunately; Australia only. They're the one "blindness organization" I give monthly to. Not having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on screen reading software is the entire reason I have the chance to support myself. Without NVDA, it's no exaggeration to say that I could not live the life I live today.
As long as the website is appropriately designed and the person is familiar with it and the screen reader, they can navigate like nobody's business.
If the website doesn't make appropriate use of tags, labels and javascript, then it will be a nightmare. If you are making a heading and don't use an H tag, you are literally satan. If your H tags don't follow the proper order, you are literally satan. If your site relies on javascript that modifies the layout of the page, you might be satan If you modify anything above the cursor that's bad, below is okay. If you have content that adds to the experience (pictures and stuff) make sure it's appropriately alt-texted and labeled. If it doesn't add to the experience of the site, why are you even showing it?
The way (I have seen) it work is that you will hit a page and press 1 to bring you to the first H1 tag, subsequent 1s will bring to the next one ext. Same with 2 through to 6 (there are only 6 levels of H tags). This can make navigation super quick and smooth. P brings you to the next P tag etc.
You can also tab through the elements on a page which helps a lot when exploring.
There is a free screen reader that is pretty good called NVDA that you can try. For the true experience, make sure you turn off your monitor.
Also when it's reading at 600 WPM, it's reading way faster than you are.
Also i find using a mobile view of a website (by minimizing browser window) makes websites more straight forward.
Note: In mobile view some functions of website can be hidden thus requiring to maximize the window. (shortcut [win] + up arrow/down arrow
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From my experience social networks are quite uncomfortable to use (facebook, twitter) would recommend starting with some blogs. Most of them have a common heading followed by the entry structure. I find reddit quite a easy to use platform for basicfeed viewing, maybe introduce it to her, there are a lot of communities that can be interesting.
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Nvda user guide, quite a read, can be started from chapter 4:
https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/userGuide.html
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Learn keyboard shortcuts for everything: browser, nvda, windows
NVDA is free and straightforward as far as screen readers go. It is also one of the most used, so web content that is build with accessibility in mind should be fully compatible.
I use a text tp speech reader while I read the PDF, helps a lot. NVDA is the one I use. https://www.nvaccess.org/download/
Though it can be a bit hard to learn the key commands, when you first launch it.
Just for the tech side of things, NVDA is free, and cheap training material is available. If you have the time and interest, you don't need the CNIB (or anyone else) to get you started.
The hardware is nothing very special. A standard i5 desktop Dell Optiplex. They come from the factory with both a VGA and a DisplayPort on the motherboard. All I had to do was enable them to both be active. Did not even have to purchase a video card. The 24 in monitors were business class HP monitors that were hand-me-downs when a computer lab on campus was upgraded.
The two leading programs in the field of visual enhancement and screen-reading are Zoomtext - Home Edition $600 and JAWS Job Access With Speech,- Home Edition $900
Both of these programs will allow for image magnification and have the ability to read the contents of the screen in a variety of voices. Both of these program have been around for 20 years, long before Windows went and incorporated these functions into the operating system.
Conversely, there is a large variety of free software that has the same functionality. I like the open source project NV Access
There is a a lot of very specialized, very expensive, hardware and software that is marketed to the visually impaired. As an IT person I look at it and see where I can get the same functions from a home made rig at a fraction of a cost of these devices. But these systems are marketed by companies that provide health care. So it is a doctor or therapist telling you to use some specific hardware or software, like a prescription.
A person with a medical condition applies more significance to what a medical professional says to use than what an IT person says will work. And usually once someone learns to use one device or system, then they do not want to give it up or learn a new way of doing things.
Dyscalculia would must defiantly effect computing. I feel it might even be worse in some cases. The only way around this is a text-to speech application. There are ones for coding and computing.
Math Notation, Graphing & Drawing
MathType (Mac & PC)
MathMagic (Mac & PC) and MathMagic Lite (Mac, PC, iOS, Android)
FX Equation (Mac & PC)
FX Graph (Mac & PC)
FX Draw (Mac & PC)
GeoGebra (Mac, PC, iOS, Chrome)
Desmos Graphing Calculator (iOS, Android, Chrome, online)
Desmos Test Mode (iOS) - restricted test-safe version of Desmos
MathPad & MathPad Plus (PC - discontinued)
MathPad by Voice (PC - discontinued)
MathTalk (PC)
Panther Math Paper (iOS)
ModMath (iOS)
If all else fails https://www.nvaccess.org/
Not in front of my windows computer to confirm, but flipping through the NVDA docs, I found this:
"Besides the NVDA Settings dialog, The Preferences sub-menu of the NVDA Menu contains... Punctuation/symbol pronunciation. This dialog allows you to change the way punctuation and other symbols are pronounced...To change a symbol, first select it in the Symbols list. You can filter the symbols by entering the symbol or a part of the symbol's replacement into the Filter by edit box. The Replacement field allows you to change the text that should be spoken in place of this symbol."
You can open a python console by pressing NVDA+control+z. https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/developerGuide.html#PythonConsole
I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to tell it to read a file. The developer documentation is pretty long though and I don't immediately see how. https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/developerGuide.html
I'm acquainted with Python, which is what the NVDA Screen Reader is written in. They use the built-in Windows 10 OCR support, which is documented here, among other places. I've never tried hacking on nVDA myself, as I never really saw much need to, and it's a somewhat intimidating codebase.
Mouse keys are awesome. I had to mess with a windows machine that only had one USB port free for a keyboard.
While you're at it, try NVDA and ditch the monitor as well as the mouse :)
What are the resources like where you live? In some countries, blind people can get training how to use technology or help purchasing it through the government.
Computers, smartphones, tablets, etc are accessed with a screen reader. On a computer typically a person will type with the keyboard, and then receive audible feedback. The cheapest fully functional computer option is to buy a windows PC and install NVDA on it. Macs are great too, but more expensive. (Don't bother with linux for a blind person who is new to using a computer.)
iphones and ipads are very accessible to blind people using voiceover. Applevis has good info. You use the touchscreen for most things (using gestures) but you can also use Siri and dictation. Android devices are also accessible with talkback, but there is typically more of a learning curve and it's not as consistent between apps and devices. For a new smartphone user, I would definitely recommend an iphone if it's affordable.
If your friend reads braille, braille displays can be attached to a computer or smartphone using a USB cable or bluetooth. They show the same text that is being read out loud by the screen reader in braille, using raised mechanical pins. They're typically expensive however. The cheapest one (by far) you can buy currently that I know of is the Orbit Reader 20, which is $449 through APH. A braille display is not necessary if your friend is able to hear and understand speech.
There are also dedicated devices for blind people, like notetakers which are basically PDAs designed for blind people. They're very expensive, and honestly not necessary for most blind people these days with how accessible regular computers and smart phones are.
I'm a blindy and will explain how it all works.
We like movies just as much as sighted people. No we cant' see them but we can use audio description. Audio description is a track that plays along side the movie; telling the blind person what is going on. Here's an example of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tU05ZHUAq0
We use screen reading software. The screen reader I'm using at the moment is called NVDA. https://www.nvaccess.org/This program allows me to read what I type, webpages, order things from Amazon and so much more. It uses synthetic speech.
We can use smartphones like the IPhone and android devices. I personally have an IPhone 6 or 6s, I can't remember what one. But I know one thing; it's great. With the apps I downloaded to it, i can read any print put in front of me, phone and chat to my friends on Skype, send emails, write texts and so much more.
> the best solution available
It isn't, unfortunately. If you read that privacy policy...if you wouldn't feel comfortable livestreaming it on youtube, don't put it in front of Seeing AI. Because you get pretty much no data protection at all. So I can't use it to OCR my mail (even though it can read documents) because I wouldn't know if it's my bank statement, junk mail, or a credit card bill, until it's too late! Instead, I need to use KNFB Reader for that. Plus, Seeing AI can't identify colours. I have to use AIPoly instead. So I have to flip regularly between three different apps. First world problems, I know! :-) At least all three apps exist and are all being improved. It's an exciting time to be blind.
> be really cool if Perigo Sight becomes an open source initiative,
That would be really cool! It seems to work for NVDA, and has allowed NVDA to become the best screen reader anywhere, on any platform. Though I wonder how many people can really contribute to code involving cutting edge AI like this? I'd be surprised if there were more than a hundred programmers currently living who can do this kind of work.
> if you do try it out.
I will! I did a post a few months ago giving a comparison between the OCR quality of Eye of Providence and KNFB Reader. It's time to do another one, comparing the new options, now that we have multiple object identification apps.
Another release and once again I will remind everyone that NVAccess relies on your donations to continue development of NVDA. Consider a monthly donation if you can afford it. The steady cash flow really helps with planning and budgeting.
I’m not sure how to do that on facebook, but if you want to use a screen reader to test it out to see what it would sound like, Windows has a built in screen reader called narrator that you could use. However, many more blind people use a screen reader called NVDA. It is free to download. Here’s the website.
NVDA is a free screen reader.
You can install it and then use keyboard controls to navigate through the page to see how accessible it is/how someone who is visually impaired might navigate through it.
https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/releases/2021.2/nvda_2021.2.exe
You could have found that through the Releases link on the right side of the page.
Nope. It's unlistenable. Over the last three games, they failed to call an average of one play per inning, always returned way too late from Hazel's updates, and refered to on-screen stats or a replay unavailable to the radio audience multiple times per game. As a blind person, the only way for me to follow the game is listening to the away team, or pulling up the MLB game day page thing, and setting up NVDA to read out the changes on the page as they happen. Also, the sound mix is just bad! No park announcers? No hearing the music each player comes up to the plate with? I might as well read the box score after the game; it would have just as much atmosphere.
Dragon Naturally Speaking does a poor job with interface accessibility past a surface familiarity, such as "search Google for ______" or "open a new Word document", relying more on verbal data entry with someone who can visually recognize UI elements. What you described is closer to NVDA, VoiceOver, JAWS, and other OS overlays. The FAQ over at r/blind does a good job summarizing computer accessibility for people with visual disabilities. I hope this helped!
I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:
I did the honors for you.
^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3
NV Access sell training material and phone support in the US and Australia.
I had to come to terms with shouldering the majority of my social distancing responsibility. I'm also immunocompromised because of asthma, so I'm at a higher risk of getting the worse symptoms. When I hear reports of going to restaurants and stores and the odds of someone being masked or not are poor, how am I supposed to know which places to randomly avoid? On top of that, by the time I know someone is near, they're already less than 6 feet away. That's not even including the "rebellious" ones who think that they're making some sort of brave statement by potentially risking infecting themselves or others in order to get margaritas.
So until some point when all of this dies down (as in dropping significantly, not plateauing), I've had to rely on other people delivering things to me, lots of conference calls, and keeping people away from me. I have friends who got the virus and, while they lived, they're coming to terms with asthma-like symptoms for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, people keep calling me to find out what they can do to help. "Wear a mask?" "But I don't have it!" "Can you guarantee that every unmasked person you hung out with didn't? At least you can see if they have one or not. "
Also: NVDA on my desktop computer is how. For other options, here you go.
No, you only add aria-label to interactive elements like buttons and anchors. If you add an aria-label to, say, a div, then it won't actually do anything (you can test this with a free screen reader like NVDA). You'll also get HTML validation warnings suggesting a misuse of aria-label.
There's a list of elements that can use aria-label here:
If you're still using Narrator, consider giving NVDA a try if you haven't already. It's free:
I'm not blind, but am a software developer who on and off has worked on making Windows applications accessible, and having used Narrator, Window-Eyes, JAWS, and now NVDA, I was pleasantly surprised now well NVDA worked, especially since it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
You can actually download a free screenreader here and try it out to understand how assistive technology along with image/video transcription makes the internet available to everyone, regardless of their level of vision!
THere's no one post that earns that dubious distinction, but there's a type of question (and associated answer) that comes up far too frequently: the "Blind people of Reddit, how do you ______" questions that are full of replies featuring people smashing their faces on keyboards. Not only do the "kjdsfkjdsf"-style answers contribute nothing, but moderators frequently delete them anyway. All of that just leads to yet another post that offers little-to-nothing of worth and is quickly forgotten before yet another person thinks the "joke" will be a lot funnier if they post it unchanged and wait for the upvotes to disappear.
I guess my TL;DR summary would be: "Sighted people of Reddit, why do you keep doing this to yourselves?"
P.S. VoiceOver on laptop, NVDA on desktop, TalkBack on phone.
Narrator won't give you the required feedback for the speech recognition software. The main thing you'll be missing is that it won't tell you what text was just entered when you finish speaking, and it won't read you the windows that come up when you want to correct an error with your voice.
What I would suggest is get NVDA which is a free screen reader. On its own, it won't do much beter than Narrator, but you can get the Dictation Bridge add-on which makes it work better with dictation software - by making it speak what you dictated and any correction windows that come up.
Dictation Bridge supports 2 speech recognition apps. The first is the speech recognition built-into Windows which you can find in the ease of access settings. It's free and should be OK to get you started, though it's not very accurate. So if you're planning to do a lot of dictation, pick up Dragon Naturally Speaking which a few others already recommended here. It's not free, but will give you far better results especially if you take the time to train it.
Actually, you don't need anything special. All you need is a computer which has speakers or headphones and you're good to go. Only aditional software you'll need is https://www.nvaccess.org/ and it's completely free.
Try /r/spinalcordinjuries too. I'm pretty sure there are buttons you can attach to the headrest that he can bump with a slight head movement that would let him control a computer (mouse and typing etc), with a default screenreader for blind people (https://www.nvaccess.org/ is free, JAWS is paid).
How blind is he? If he can see super big letters on a screen very close to him, he could maybe also use an eye tracker https://www.tobii.com/
I use Emacs with some modifications I ginned up. There's something called Emacspeak which is kind of heavyweight and maximalist and hard to set up but which is really amazing for coding if you can sink the time into it. A lot of people like coding on Windows with NVDA and Visual Studio or Notepad++, there are ways of turning on the characters and having your screen reader read them.
Check out the NVDA developer's guide for a bit more: https://www.nvaccess.org/files/nvda/documentation/developerGuide.html#toc2
There are a lot of blind coders out there.
Google Accessible Epub and you will find information from people who have thought seriously about this problem.
The International Digital Publishing Forum have information on the EPUB 3 format and how you can make more than plain text accessible. In particular the [Accessible Image Sample Book](Accessible Image Sample Book) should help you with making your illustrations accessible.
You will be able to test it cheaply using NVDA for Windows, Voiceover (built into iPad/iPhones as standard) and Chromevox (built into Chromebooks/Chromebox as standard). The challenge might be learning to use these different tools as they each have their own ways of working.
If you want to test against other screen-reader software such as Jaws or Dolphin SuperNova then you may find the cost of these prohibitive.
Google can give you a better variety, but check out Nvda. I've heard good things.
https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2017-4-drops-support-for-older-operating-systems/
As you can see there, newer versions dropped support for older versions of windows, but the older versions of Nvda still support older versions of windows.
NVDA IS WONDERFUL!
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I am a sighted person, and this is my first post to this subreddit.
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This is also my first experience with NVDA. I downloaded NVDA to a public computer, and it can be used without installation! Most publicly available computers are password protected to activities restricted to administrators such as installation, but the program can be used immediately following download!
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This is also my first experience of Google Slides. I found that Google Slides did not appear to be compatible with NVDA, and have sent feedback to Google through the Help feature:
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"Google Slides do not appear to be navigable by NVDA.
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I don't know if the compatibility issue is inherent to NVDA or Google Slides, but individuals with disabilities of sight that depend on NVDA do not appear to be able to utilize Google Slides.
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Thank you for your consideration."
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I recall it was Materia Magica that basically hacked NVDA into MUSHClient and then went nuts making the MUD totally compatible with it. Also having NVDA installed at all is pretty useful too if you want to hear how your MUD will sound in real time, and then calibrate pauses and minimize purely visual characters.
I use NVDA. It's a free and open source screen reader for windows. I've done a Casual AMA in the past, and I think other blind Reddit folks have done official AMAs. Unfortunately I can't find them right this second because Reddit search is and always will be awful.
Unfortunately I don't know of any app that will begin playing when it is opened, but as she gets more familiar with VoiceOver, she should be able to learn how to navigate apps and find exactly what she wants to play.
It sounds like she's not very familiar with accessible technology in general, so I thought I'd mention that their is screen reading software for all the major platforms. If she has a Windows computer, there is an awesome screen reader that is completely free called NVDA.
With nvda on windows, pressing enter doesn't seem to remove the overlay. Also, both NVDA and the extension read out the caption. If it were me, what I would probably do is modify the alt-text of the original image that the user right clicked on, to make the alt text be equal to the returned caption. Then just play a small sound to signify that the work has been done. That way, the user can review the caption with his regular screen reader commands, without losing his place in the web page, or having to listen to a third party voice reading it.
Also, if the image contains text, your extension doesn't seem to indicate that at all. It would be useful, even if it couldn't do OCR, if it returned something like "Also contains text". Many screen readers (NVDA and JAWS at least) have a command to perform OCR on an image. However, that doesn't describe the image at all, just recognize text. So, for example, the first image on this page, when I OCR it with NVDA, returns: > Testimonial > > This is a test of the testimonial section. > > -- John Doe, US
When I ask your extension for a caption, it returns: > a close up of a person holding a wii remote
I have no idea where it's getting that; I'm totally blind myself. Never-the-less, the point of the image is the text. So a hint that the user should try OCR would be useful.
My grandpa's blind and sends text messages etc. It's not nearly as easy for normal-sighted people but basically there are programs that read whatever is on screen by the cursor for the user. I'm pretty sure he isn't on Reddit though.