The importance of an accessible website cannot be overstated in the current times. The COVID-19 pandemic has made online activities a part of everyone’s livelihood. That is why the American legal system is strict towards businesses that do not have a compliant website.
Several organizations, big and small, have been subjected to accessibility lawsuits by people with disabilities or activists. Websites have to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to become compliant with the law.
One of the mandatory aspects of an accessible website is its compatibility with assistive technologies like screen readers. That is why web accessibility market leaders like accessiBe and LightHouse are developing AI-based technologies and coding practices that enable the use of assistive devices.
Business owners can follow their social media pages to learn more about these latest advancements in web accessibility. These companies are constantly testing their solutions to understand how people with disabilities interact with the websites so that they can come up with better ways to achieve web accessibility.
In this post, we discuss a particular device that helps people visual challenges to navigate websites independently, screen readers.
What Are Screen Readers?
Screen readers are assistive devices that read out the written content present on a website so that people who are blind or have visual impairments can access the information. Some users with cognitive or learning disabilities also use screen readers to access online information.
It takes some time for users to get used to screen readers since they read content in a different way than human beings. However, experienced users can bump up the speed to up to 300 words per minute, which may sound unintelligible to an inexperienced ear. Some of the most commonly used screen readers are:
- JAWS
- NVDA
- TalkBack
- VoiceOver
There are several other screen readers available to people with disabilities. Most screen readers function similarly, but they might differ in shortcuts, voices, and ways to call out elements of a website. These are some of the aspects that you ought to keep in mind to make website content compatible with screen readers.
Language
Websites need to contain the language specifications in their HTML coding since every language follows different rules for grammar and pronunciation. So if the content is in English, it must be specified with an attribute. Screen readers also translate any foreign text present on websites, so the language attribute must define the presence of a foreign language.
For example, if the content mentions a Spanish dish, there must be a temporary language attribute that defines the presence of a Spanish word amidst English. That way, the screen readers will understand how to read out the information accurately.
Linear Presentation of Content
People who have sight can scan a web page to gather the content quickly. But visually impaired users cannot do that, so that must rely on the screen reader to read out the information one by one.
The experience is similar to when an automated voice relays the menu options to you on a phone call. Therefore the information must be arranged linearly so that the screen readers can read it out in the correct order, or it might confuse the person hearing it.
Navigation and Content
People who use screen readers often need to navigate through the content quickly. To facilitate that, some aspects must be optimized.
- Screen readers provide the option of jumping between links or form fields. However, the HTML attributes must make sense to the user if it gets read out of context. Without the proper attribute, the user may skip a link with essential information.
- Screen reader users also use the headings to skip the navigation and jump between topics. It helps them to gather an overall impression of the content and skip or backtrack to the relevant parts. That is why the presence of appropriate headings is essential.
- The content should also contain the relevant ARIA landmarks to differentiate the page sections.
- Screen reader users use the first few lines of a paragraph to understand the content and skip if required. Therefore, place the distinguishing information in the first few lines of the paragraph.
- Screen readers also use the skip-navigation link to jump to different parts of the page, so list the contents in a manner that makes it easy for them to skip through repeated links.
- Use proper semantic structure and attributes within the HTML coding to mark details within tables, lists, forms, images, and others.
- Screen readers will read out the acronyms as a word if the alphabets make it pronounceable or if they can recognize it. In other cases, they will read the letters in the written order. If you use acronyms in the content, make sure that you explain them in the beginning so that the user understands it in the subsequent mentions.
It might be useful to learn how screen readers read the content so that it is easier for you to develop the website accordingly.
Using a screen reader for the first time might feel confusing to an inexperienced user, so make sure that your website content is as simplified as possible. If you are new to the field of accessibility, it is better to use an AI-powered automated solution that guarantees to make your website WCAG and ADA compliant.
