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What is the most used/popular desktop (web) screen reader out there? I think it would help if everyone tried using their own product through accessibility-tool

What is the most used/popular desktop (web) screen reader out there? I think it would help if everyone tried using their own product through accessibility-tools from time to time.

CJefferson 6y ago
I know a few people who use VoiceOver on Mac with standard safari. You can also turn it on on an iPad or iPhone, if you have one lying around.
- Raed667 6y ago
  This doesn't look too bad! Thanks!
ebg13 6y ago
JAWS. It's costly, though.
- RobMurray 6y ago
  Please test with NVDA. It is free and very popular. Jaws is becoming less and less relevant mainly due to it's cost, and the fact that NVDA is perfectly usable for most things. If you do want to test with jaws, there is a demo that works for 40 minutes. By far the easiest screen reader to test with is Microsoft Narrator because it is included with windows.
aloisdg 6y ago
I test my own creations on Linux with Orca (maintained at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca) and on Windows I rely on NVDA (downloadable freely at https://www.nvaccess.org/download/ https://www.nvaccess.org/download/)
- jscholes 6y ago
  > I test my own creations on Linux with Orca Thank you for carrying out testing. I should note that, unlike the probable majority of HN readers, MacOS and Linux are nowhere near as popular among blind users as Windows. MacOS has a decent market share (around 10-12 percent or so), but the number of screen reader users on Linux is almost insignificant.
frank2 6y ago
If I were blind, I would try to do as much of my interaction with the web as possible in "edbrowse", a browser designed and written by a blind programmer: https://edbrowse.org/ https://edbrowse.org/ Although it is common for people to refer to vim as a command-line program, edbrowse is a command-line program in a stricter sense: the user types a line of text, then hits return, then the computer prints zero or more lines of text, then the user types a line of text, etc. (vim is a rewrite of an earlier program named vi, which is short for "visual", a name chosen to emphasize the fact that it departs from the strictly line-oriented interface of earlier Unix editors.)
- jscholes 6y ago
  > If I were blind, I would try to do as much of my interaction with the web as possible in "edbrowse", a browser designed and written by a blind programmer: I beg you, please don't test your website for accessibility by using edbrowse.
  - frank2 6y ago
    It's not that you are against a website's being tested with edbrowse; it just that you don't want that to be a substitute for testing using a screen reader and a mainstream browser. Do I have that right?
    - jscholes 6y ago
      > it just that you don't want that to be a substitute for testing using a screen reader and a mainstream browser. Do I have that right? For sure. If your website does work in edbrowse, it may imply that you have a decent chance of making it accessible because it doesn't use a ton of dynamic interactions or page updates etc. But it doesn't guarantee it. You could still have issues with heading hierarchy, communication of control state and other factors. In some cases, edbrowse may even lull someone into a false sense of security, because it simply can't present certain aspects of your page. But when displayed in a mainstream browser, they may be inaccessible. In a nutshell, it's unlikely that you can draw any meaningful conclusions after testing with edbrowse, be they about the accessibility of the page or the typical experience of a blind user on the web.
jscholes 6y ago
> What is the most used/popular desktop (web) screen reader out there? On Windows, JAWS[1] and NVDA[2] are the most popular, the latter of which is open source. On MacOS, the only choice for GUIs is VoiceOver[3]. [1] https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/ https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/ [2] https://www.nvaccess.org https://www.nvaccess.org [3] https://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1121.html https://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1121.html
acdha 6y ago
The BBC has guides for using the common tools: https://bbc.github.io/accessibility-news-and-you/accessibility-and-testing-with-assistive-technology.html https://bbc.github.io/accessibility-news-and-you/accessibili... Microsoft has documentation on the built-in Narrator: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17173/windows-10-hear-text-read-aloud https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17173/windows-10-he... Apple has docs about VoiceOver on iOS and macOS: https://help.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/ https://help.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/

What is the most used/popular desktop (web) screen reader out there? I think it would help if everyone tried using their own product through accessibility-tools from time to time.

CJefferson 6y ago

I know a few people who use VoiceOver on Mac with standard safari. You can also turn it on on an iPad or iPhone, if you have one lying around.

Raed667 6y ago
This doesn't look too bad! Thanks!

ebg13 6y ago

JAWS. It's costly, though.

RobMurray 6y ago
Please test with NVDA. It is free and very popular. Jaws is becoming less and less relevant mainly due to it's cost, and the fact that NVDA is perfectly usable for most things. If you do want to test with jaws, there is a demo that works for 40 minutes. By far the easiest screen reader to test with is Microsoft Narrator because it is included with windows.

aloisdg 6y ago

I test my own creations on Linux with Orca (maintained at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca) and on Windows I rely on NVDA (downloadable freely at https://www.nvaccess.org/download/ https://www.nvaccess.org/download/)

jscholes 6y ago
> I test my own creations on Linux with Orca Thank you for carrying out testing. I should note that, unlike the probable majority of HN readers, MacOS and Linux are nowhere near as popular among blind users as Windows. MacOS has a decent market share (around 10-12 percent or so), but the number of screen reader users on Linux is almost insignificant.

frank2 6y ago

If I were blind, I would try to do as much of my interaction with the web as possible in "edbrowse", a browser designed and written by a blind programmer: https://edbrowse.org/ https://edbrowse.org/ Although it is common for people to refer to vim as a command-line program, edbrowse is a command-line program in a stricter sense: the user types a line of text, then hits return, then the computer prints zero or more lines of text, then the user types a line of text, etc. (vim is a rewrite of an earlier program named vi, which is short for "visual", a name chosen to emphasize the fact that it departs from the strictly line-oriented interface of earlier Unix editors.)

jscholes 6y ago
> If I were blind, I would try to do as much of my interaction with the web as possible in "edbrowse", a browser designed and written by a blind programmer: I beg you, please don't test your website for accessibility by using edbrowse.
- frank2 6y ago
  It's not that you are against a website's being tested with edbrowse; it just that you don't want that to be a substitute for testing using a screen reader and a mainstream browser. Do I have that right?
  - jscholes 6y ago
    > it just that you don't want that to be a substitute for testing using a screen reader and a mainstream browser. Do I have that right? For sure. If your website does work in edbrowse, it may imply that you have a decent chance of making it accessible because it doesn't use a ton of dynamic interactions or page updates etc. But it doesn't guarantee it. You could still have issues with heading hierarchy, communication of control state and other factors. In some cases, edbrowse may even lull someone into a false sense of security, because it simply can't present certain aspects of your page. But when displayed in a mainstream browser, they may be inaccessible. In a nutshell, it's unlikely that you can draw any meaningful conclusions after testing with edbrowse, be they about the accessibility of the page or the typical experience of a blind user on the web.

jscholes 6y ago

> What is the most used/popular desktop (web) screen reader out there? On Windows, JAWS[1] and NVDA[2] are the most popular, the latter of which is open source. On MacOS, the only choice for GUIs is VoiceOver[3]. [1] https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/ https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/ [2] https://www.nvaccess.org https://www.nvaccess.org [3] https://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1121.html https://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1121.html

acdha 6y ago

The BBC has guides for using the common tools: https://bbc.github.io/accessibility-news-and-you/accessibility-and-testing-with-assistive-technology.html https://bbc.github.io/accessibility-news-and-you/accessibili... Microsoft has documentation on the built-in Narrator: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17173/windows-10-hear-text-read-aloud https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17173/windows-10-he... Apple has docs about VoiceOver on iOS and macOS: https://help.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/ https://help.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/