Screen Reader Basics

Screen readers are used by visually impaired users to interact with the computer. The screen reader speaks the information on the screen and provides many options and mechanisms for navigating the content.

Doug Geoffray, founder of GW Micro the maker of the Window-Eyes screen reader, recently spoke at Yahoo about screen readers. The hour long talk is split into two videos. It gives a brief history and an overview of how screen readers work, some of the problems screen readers need to work around and how to build more accessible products.

Often when I am explaining accessibility requirements for Web pages, I find that people don't really understand the issues concerning High Contrast. This post attempts to explain high contrast mode and includes some pictures to demonstrate the potential problems.