Edit a video without using a mouse or trackpad. Build a presentation without seeing the screen. Or track down important files for your next project with just your voice. Because Mac is designed for everybody to create amazing things.
VoiceOverYou don’t need to see your Mac to use your Mac.
VoiceOver is a revolutionary built-in screen reader that’s more than a text-to-speech tool. It tells you exactly what’s on your screen and talks you through actions like editing a video, building a presentation, or quickly navigating from one app to another.
Screen readers are a form of assistive technology (AT) software application potentially useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, or learning disabled, often in combination with other AT such as screen magnifiers. Screen readers are software programs that allow blind or visually impaired users to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or braille display. A screen reader is the interface between the computer's operating system, its applications, and the user.
Dark ModeWorking hard gets easier on the eyes.
Dark Mode transforms the desktop and built-in apps with a new dark color scheme that helps you focus on your work.1 The fine points of your content take center screen as toolbars and menus recede into the background. Light text against darker backdrops in Mail, Safari Reader, Calendar, and more makes everything easier to read in low lighting conditions. And the Accessibility preferences for increased contrast and reduced transparency work with Dark Mode enabled.
SiriMake requests by talking or typing.
Siri on Mac lets you quickly find and open files, set reminders, send text messages, and more, making it easy to handle the things you do every day.2 With “Type to Siri” mode, you can make requests using a physical or onscreen keyboard. And Siri can also predict your next word based on what you’ve said before, so you can minimize typing over time.
Switch ControlNavigate your Mac with as little as a tap.
Create amazing things with your Mac without touching a mouse or keyboard. With Switch Control, you can navigate through onscreen keyboards, menus, and the Dock using a variety of switch options.
Text to SpeechGo from written word to spoken word.
If you learn better when you can hear what you’re reading or writing, Text to Speech lets you highlight any text and have your Mac read it aloud. And you can choose from more than 70 male or female voices across 42 languages.
Page Content
Individuals with severe visual impairment may rely on a screen reader (software that reads content aloud) to access Web sites. Visual cues, such as images, section divisions or table headers, may be imperceivable to this audience unless additional information is added. Often required are text alternatives for images and other visual content, and the specification of key landmarks (e.g. headers, lists) within a document.
Tools Needed by Users
Screen Readers
Screen readers are pieces of software that read all the text within a digital document aloud. Most screen readers also allow users to move from landmark to landmark within a page. Landmarks can include section headers, links, table headers and other items indicating important divisions of information.
The most commonly used screen reader is JAWS (Windows only), but other screen readers include NVDA (Windows), VoiceOver (Mac/iPhone), and Emacspeak (Linux). Screenreaders are often used by and associated with visually impaired users, but some, particularly Kurzweil (Win/Mac) are also used by individuals with certain reading disabilities.
Other Tools
Other tools used by the visually impaired community include:
- Braille Printers—Printers that print embossed (raised) Braille on a page.
- Refreshable Braille Displays—tool that raise pins to form Braille characters. Users place their fingers on the device to detect changes in characters. See a Braille display demo (with a smart phone).
- Embossed Printers--Printers that print embossed images and graphs with the edges raised.
- 3D Printers—Devices that convert images into three-dimensional objects.
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Software—Software that recognizes text embedded in an image and converts it to a text file. This is particularly useful for PDF documents in which each page is actually an image.
Demos of Screen Readers
Screen Reader Video Demos (JAWS)
Screen Reader Simulation Plugins
- Fangs Screen Reader Emulator for Firefox—Does not speak aloud, but can display any Web page in screen reader format (no text breaks, headers/tables announced).
Visualization of Screen Reader
The following two images show a screen capture of the header at http://tlt.its.psu.edu in both Firefox and in Lynx.
TLT Header in Firefox
TLT Header Viewed in Lynx
Accommodations Needed
The main accommodations needed by users with severe visual impairment are:
- Alt text to describe images or animations on the Web, in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, Canvas, Flash, PDF files, and any other online document.
- Form Labels for Web forms and Flash forms that identify the functions of their fields.
- Semantic section headings indicated by something other than a format change. In Microsoft Word, authors should use the Heading styles. In HTML, headers should be indicated with H1, H2, H3, etc. tags.
- Complete keyboard functionality. Anything that can be done on a mouse should be doable on a keyboard.
- Properly labeled Table headers.
- Frames labeled with meaningful titles.
- Language 'tagging' to allow proper control of synthesized speech pronunciation.
- Software and online tools designed to read out menus and functions to screen reader user.
Hidden Audiences for Text-Based Browsers
Visually impaired users are not the only ones who use text-only browsers. Other segments of users, such as those on older PDAs or cell phones, or who have disabled image downloading because of a slow connection, may also benefit from the simpler interface. Text-only browsers are especially useful to users outside the United States, who may only have access to the Internet via a text-only browser or cell phone.
Etiquette for interacting with the Blind or Visually Impaired
Note: Many of these accommodations also apply to low vision users
who retain limited visual acuity.
who retain limited visual acuity.
- Identify yourself when speaking to a person who is blind and alert them when you leave.
- Feel free to warn individuals with visual disabilities of dangerous situations. If there is a person with a walking cane navigating around a car in the street or headed for a column, feel free to speak up and say, “Hold on you’re in the street,” or “Stop… there is a column there!” Construction areas are a particular area of concern.
- Strategies for asking if a person who is blind or vision impaired needs help:
- Do not grab arm or touch someone, this may startle him or her.
- Offer detailed instructions before touching someone. Offering an arm or providing detailed instructions is commonplace for those who are blind or have vision impairment. Detailed instructions could be a description of how to get to an open door, such as, “ two small steps to your right and just about 10 steps ahead of you is the doorway or would you like my arm?”
- Offer an arm or shoulder, when guiding someone. Never leave him or her in a free or open space. Leave them in contact with a wall or arm rail if you need to leave them for a moment. When offering a seat you may offer to guide their hand to the seat.
- Do not make assumptions of capability. Respect any persons’ ability to do things. People find ways and use tools to achieve their goals. Esref Armagn is a Turkish painter who just happened to be blind. He taught himself to write and oil paint with full visual perspectives in the paintings.
- Guide Dogs: Do NOT approach, try to pet, try to feed, or try to gain the attention of a guide dog. The dog is there to do a job and specially trained for that job. The casual attention offered to this dog may disturb the training and cause problems for the owner. A good rule of thumb to remember is if the dog is wearing his uniform or harness, then he is on duty.
Note: If the dog is doing something inappropriate, inform the owner and allow the owner to correct the behavior of his or her guide dog.
Language
Remember, “person-first language
- It is fine to refer to vision and metaphors concerning vision in a conversation, such as, “Do you see what I mean?” or, “Look at this!”
- Speaking and giving directions; refer to directions by giving an approximate distance or number of streets and or give landmarks (They may recognize sounds of an escalator). Just remember to clarify the details of the direction, just like you would with anyone.
- Maintaining a conversation and using descriptive language with some who is blind seems like an odd tip. In a discussion between people there are visual cues many of us do not think about when starting and stopping a conversation. Imagine your cell phone going off and you answer the phone, while offering an apologetic look at a friend and mouthing silently sorry. This is NOT achievable with a person who is blind. Also, in conversation the reference to colors, patterns, design and shapes should not be avoided. Each person has various experiences and all forms of description are valuable. A person, who is blind, could be told the wall is a bright yellow and associate the color with the feeling of a warm summer day because the sun has been described as yellow. Just because the person may have never seen the bright color of the sun, doesn’t mean there is no association to the sun.
In the Classroom
Screen Readers For Visually Impaired
- With furniture placement, remember people who are blind or vision impaired memorize the layout of a room, especially if the room is frequently visited. Try to avoid situations in which the room layout changes. If you or someone else changes the room layout, you should warn those who are Blind/Visually impaired when he or she enters the room. Desks in a circle, or media carts brought in for presentations are just some examples that alter the space temporarily.
- Engaging in class activities should, also, be considered with a student who is blind. Moving desks for group activities, hands-on activities, or watching a skit or other students’ performances or presentations should be addressed and accommodated to allow a student who is blind to participate.
- Also, be aware, vision impairment may be degenerative in nature. This means the needs may change over time. As a teacher or employer, remember to clarify the needs with those who have vision impairments. And as a person with a visual impairment you should always maintain an “open dialogue” with your teachers or employers about changes in concessions.