Exploring Reading Assistive Technology: Bringing Words to the World

Making your brand’s website and/or web application compatible with low-tech assistive technology for reading means you’re complying with accessibility laws and regulations. It also ensures you can avoid unnecessary and costly accessibility-related lawsuits, which are on the rise in several countries. 

By not embracing reading assistive technology, you’re unable to cater to all customers, which means you lose out on a lot of potential business. Adopting accessibility best practices means you can optimize your content, products, and support to offer a superior customer experience. 

A business that has taken the time to offer a more inclusive online experience is one that customers will be more willing to recommend and buy from in the future, making this a worthwhile endeavor. 

Assistive technology for reading doesn’t end with your customers, your employees can benefit too. By adopting reading assistance devices, you’re able to develop a more inclusive working environment that improves employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention. 

You may not even realize the difference that reading assistive technology can make in your business until you see the increase in knowledge sharing and collaboration among employees and key stakeholders. 

Text-to-speech technology helps convert written text into spoken words. This means a user will listen to text instead of reading it. People with little to no sight will use this type of technology to engage with online content. 

This software program is another way for a user to listen to text that appears on their screen. Screen readers can be used to engage with websites, applications, and even documents such as PDFs. 

This impressive technology converts printed or handwritten text into digital text, ensuring assistive technology can relay the copy in a more understandable format to visually impaired users. 

In order to read text more easily, some users will need to enhance the size of the text or adjust the font. Display controls can be incorporated into websites and applications to give users more control over their experience. Integrating dyslexia-friendly fonts is a big part of this. 

This particular device translates digital text into Braille characters, making it possible for blind and visually impaired users to understand what’s on their screens. 

People with writing difficulties use word prediction tools to make it easier for them to write and complete forms more quickly. This software uses algorithms and user-specific data to anticipate words and reduce writing time. 

For users who need visual cues and want to mark important information while reading online, highlighting and annotation tools can be used when engaging with digital text. 

Lastly, there will be users who don’t have an in-depth understanding of a website’s primary language, which is where translation and language support software becomes useful. These tools help people translate text into a language they can understand, ensuring they can still engage with a website or application. 

Screen readers and text-to-speech technology are available for PDF reading, ensuring blind users and those with visual impairments are able to listen to the text contained within the PDF document.