One of the important aspects of universal design is being able to use technology to assist people who need help. The assistive technology that I chose to research was screen readers. The reason I chose this was that it has been an essential tool on a PC or Mac for a person who has a visual impairment. Some examples of screen readers are Apple VoiceOver, Google TalkBack, and Microsoft Narrator. The screen reader is designed to read aloud the content that’s been presented on the screen while offering some actions to take with verbal prompts. The screen reader depends a lot on the accessibility design in the software, whether the development team has coded some clues on every element of the application or not.
Screen readers are essential to people who are blind, and are useful to people who are visually impaired, illiterate, or have a learning disability. With this technology, people who are blind are able to use computers in an accessible way, so it is very important for application developers to pay attention to and invest in the accessibility design because that is the only way that people who are blind can access the application’s content. The screen reader is also useful for people who do not want to use their eyes to navigate through the page or application. One example that I can think of is when a user is on a train and trying to get some information; the readout function of the screen reader can be quite helpful without hand holding the device.
What is more, accessibility design is tied with user experience. According to the article, “Exploring the relationship between web accessibility and user experience”, the authors ran a study with eleven participants, where the study examined the relationship between web accessibility and user experience. The results showed that perceived accessibility is associated with most UX attributes, including pragmatic quality, goodness, appeal, as well as feeling annoyed, disappointed, frustrated, happy, interested, and pleased. The authors discussed the following.
“The strong and moderate significant statistical correlations found between PWA (Progressive Web Apps) and attributes belonging to the hedonic quality-identification (i.e. inclusive, presentable, brings me closer to people, professional, integrating, valuable and classy) indicate that participants may feel closer or more identified with Web sites they experience to be accessible. And the other way around: they may feel more distant from Web sites perceived as non-accessible, as if these Websites were foreign artefacts that aren’t designed for them.” (2016)
We can conclude that technology with accessibility design is more user friendly, and with better usability, the websites would drive more visitors, not only the regular users, but also the users who need assistive technology because the site is integrated nicely with the technology. I think that in the future, assistive technology, like screen readers, should not only play the content out loud, but also send the information as electrical waves to a certain part of the brain so that it can benefit the people who are blind and deaf at the same time, so the experience is more seamless and intuitive.
REFERENCES
Aizpurua, A., Harper, S., Vigo, M (2016). Exploring the relationship between web accessibility and user experience. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 91, Pages 13–23.
