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.
The second video demos a Web tree view built using the same Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA) techniques that are being incorporated into the Dojo Core Widget set.
- From the Mouth of a screenreader (part one of two)
- From the Mouth of a Screen Reader (part two of two)
There videos provide a great overview, especially if you are not familiar with screen readers.