Assistive technology
Can assistive technology users access your online content or services?
Why it’s important
- Karin uses a mobile device to listen to the news stories of the day while travelling home from work on the bus.
- Arun has developed repetitive stress injury (RSI) in his hands and arms. He uses a combination of speech recognition and an alternative keyboard to prepare his work.
- Whetu is blind and uses a screen reader to navigate the web.
People with specific long-term disabilities are more likely to use some (AT) assistive technologies.
These include screen readers, refresh-able braille displays, screen magnifiers, and others.
Other kinds of assistive technologies may be more familiar to you. These include voice control, ergonomic keyboards or a browser's native zoom function.
People have different skill levels in how they use these technologies.
Next steps
- Take a foundation accessibility course(this link opens an external website) to get a baseline knowledge of accessibility.
- Navigate a webpage using your keyboard(this link opens an external website) only and learn to use a screen reader, such as NVDA(this link opens an external website) so you can check new features when required. This can help you to understand the technology itself. Keep in mind daily users of these technologies may have their own strategies for using these tools.
- Observe people using assistive technology on your product or others. Find videos demonstrating how people use different strategies(this link opens an external website) to interact with digital products.
References
Resources
- Assistive Technology 101: What You Need to Know(this link opens an external website)
- Video: Web Accessibility Perspectives (YouTube)(this link opens an external website)