Blind or visually impaired people use screen reader software to view digital content.
Screen readers can relay the content in one of two ways:
- Orally, using speech synthesis, as you can hear on this page.
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Via a refreshable Braille display, in which the text shown on the screen is transcribed into Braille by raising and lowering plastic pins.
A sample Braille display. (picture © HumanWare)
With this powerful software, users can not only read content, but also navigate more easily, by switching from one heading to another, going directly to the page content or the navigation menu, etc.
On this page, for example, users can ask to read only:
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If the images come with a text alternative, they can be described.
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If users want to know more, they can ask to read a particular section.