The following shortcuts are not mandatory for using VoiceOver, but can be useful for quickly navigating through an application (rather than pressing the right arrow 1 million times ?). As web developers, we want our web applications to be usable by as many people as possible – fixing accessibility issues is often quick and extremely helpful to our screen reader users. This is a great opportunity to read up on WAI-ARIA and WCAG 2.1. Screen readers not only focus on buttons and links, but also elements with text content.Īfter using VoiceOver navigation, it may quickly be apparent that some items on the website are not announced in a meaningful way.
![screen reader software for mac screen reader software for mac](https://i0.wp.com/get-evinced.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/01-Screen_readers_101_windows.jpg)
With these two commands, it is possible to navigate through the entire website as a VoiceOver user would. The following shortcuts will utilize the VoiceOver command keys to interact with VoiceOver. The VoiceOver command keys (VO) are required to interact with VoiceOver shortcuts:
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Feel free to click around to get a feel for the announcement of different types of elements. At this point, the selected item on the screen can be changed by navigating with mouse. Luckily, starting VoiceOver is super simple:Īfter selecting "Use VoiceOver" the computer will start speaking the highlighted item on your focused application (black outline) while also providing a dialog box with the current transcript. VoiceOver works best with Safari, but also works well with both Chrome and Firefox.
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Since VoiceOver comes pre-installed on MacOS, there is no need to download or configure a third party application!įor the purposes of this article, we'll focus on using VoiceOver with MacOS. It is estimated that between 1-2% of internet users in the United States use screen readers (~4 million) ?.Ī great first step in finding accessibility issues in a website is by becoming familiar with and using a screen reader on a consistent basis.
![screen reader software for mac screen reader software for mac](https://fossbytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Best-PDF-readers-for-Mac-updated.jpg)
Screen readers are a surprisingly large part of the web's user-base.
![screen reader software for mac screen reader software for mac](https://wecapable.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/person-using-screen-reader-braille-output.jpg)
Screen readers are used by visually impaired users to navigate through content on their device(s).Īs a web developer, it is vital that testing with a screen reader is part of the development workflow – much like running a linter, writing tests, or adjusting mobile responsiveness. VoiceOver is a free screen reader built into Apple products (MacOS, iOS, etc).