Assistive Technology for Documents
Assistive technology (AT) is an umbrella term that describes both devices and services that assist people to increase, maintain, or improve their functional capabilities. In plainer language, AT assists people in the daily tasks of life including the tasks associated with learning.
Like with many topics, AT is much too large a subject to investigate fully in this course. You do, however, need to know some basic information about a few AT’s so you can better understand why the choices you make in document creation matter. In this section you will learn about screen reading technologies. If you are interested in additional AT, including the AT that is very likely available to you on the computer or device you are using right now, you can easily investigate them:
AT can be useful to everyone, and it is worth taking some time to understand how your personal devices can make doing your work easier, even if you are a person who does not live with significant impairments.
In order to fully understand digital document accessibility, it’s important to know a little about screen reading technologies. Screen readers are software applications that assist people to use a computer, even if they have visual impairments or other impairments that make reading a computer screen difficult or impossible.
A screen reader works by reading the code that generates what is presented on a computer screen. Every editing and formatting decision you make when you create a digital document generates code on the “backside.” When you make efficient choices in your document creation, you generate a document that a screen reader can easily turn into a spoken-word alternative. But the less efficient you are in document creation, the less accessible that spoken-word alternative is likely to be.
There are two important screen readers to know about, JAWS and NVDA. Both are “heavy duty” screen readers that can translate webpages, electronic books, and Word documents into spoken word with a computer-generated voice.
JAWS is the most popular screen reader, although licenses for JAWS are pretty expensive. NVDA is gaining in popularity quickly, and it has the advantage of being free, although the organization that makes it available does ask for donations.
Similar to screen readers, but with less power and some additional functionality is a class of software often called “text readers.” Text readers have many of the same tools as a JAWS or NVDA but they tend to be less flexible and less tolerant of errors made when the document is created. But text readers usually have added tools such as highlighting, glossaries, and note-taking tools. Text readers are more likely to be used by students and and are particularly useful to students with learning disabilities and language learners. Tools like Read & Write and Kurzweil are good examples of text readers.
The bottom line? The better you do at digital document creation, the better these tools can work for many people including people with visual impairments, learning disabilities, and language barriers.