👨🏾💻 How Screen Readers Work, And How Users Use Them. With behavior patterns, practical insights and things to keep in mind for accessibility. ✅ 253 million people worldwide have a visual impairment. ✅ Screen readers help them translate text to speech or Braille. ✅ They work for websites, PDFs, emails, OS and other documents. ✅ They use the same voice regardless of font size, weight, color. ✅ E.g. Jaws/NVDA (Win, 80% share), VoiceOver (iOS), Talkback (Android). 🤔 Users often listen to screen readers at the 1.5–2.0x speed. ✅ Repetitive labels and hints aren't helpful (image caption, alt). ✅ Content order during tabbing conveys the structure of the page. ✅ Follow a logical linear layout, don't spread content all over a page. 🚫 Auto-playing audio is often an alarming, frustrating experience. 🤔 Users heavily rely on descriptive headings and labels. 🚫 Screen readers can‘t extract semantics from non-semantic HTML. 🚫 Screen readers can’t extract meaning from images or videos. ✅ Good HTML is everything: use links for links, buttons for buttons. ✅ Avoid "Click here", "Read more", "View now" for links. ✅ A text box without a label is meaningless to screen readers. ✅ Never rely on visuals alone, they might not even be there. 🤔 Users mostly navigate with keyboard or touch gestures on mobile. 🤔 Frequent issues with poorly structured forms, navigation, PDFs. ✅ Add UI controls for mouse-precise actions (drag'n'drop, resizing). ✅ Ensure PDF/UA compliance to generate accessible PDFs. ✅ Include nav landmarks, so users can jump within the page quickly. ✅ Always add labels to forms and avoid CAPTCHAs if you can. Where “abled people” use their natural feelings such as sight and hearing, people with disabilities must rely on technologies. Screen reading UX shouldn’t mean a “simplified” experience. It’s just a different experience, one of many. Unfamiliar tools might sound scary. Just start. Get familiar with screen readers. Run accessibility testing with a few screen reader users. Eventually make screen reader testing a part of QA. Many accessibility issues are severe, but solutions can be simple — and impactful for people who need them most. Useful resources: How A Screen Reader User Surfs The Web (video), by Léonie Watson https://lnkd.in/emv9AT-u Testing With Blind Users: A Cheat Sheet, by Slava Shestopalov https://lnkd.in/e8vBEqHn Designing For Users Of Screen Readers, by Lewis Wake https://lnkd.in/ePTVpBxy Accessibility and Inclusivity: Study Guide, by Tanner Kohler, NN/g https://lnkd.in/eb2XyQHv How To Document Screen Reader UX (+ Poster), by BBC https://lnkd.in/e8KWr-Z6 Setting Up A Screen Reader Testing, by Sara Soueidan https://lnkd.in/eYNJ9RiG
Love this. Inès Guerrini must read !
Thank you very much. This is very useful material. Unfortunately, from a marketing perspective, all designers and developers are taught to think about the majority of their target audience. I hope that one day this materialism will disappear and businesses will start to take into account all categories of people.
Ericka Tinsley
Thanks for including my article in the resources!
Amazing resources! Thanks so much!
Great resources Vitaly! Any similar resources specifically for video transcripts, closed captioning and audio descriptions?
Oh the irony that the overuse of emojis makes this post harder to read with a screen reader.