Not sure whether this has been already brought up here but someone has created an #Accessibility assistant app for the VoiceMeeter application for Windows. VoiceMeeter is a bit like Audio Hijack for Mac where you can chain different inputs on a virtual soundcard, let it run through different outputs and route the audio of other programs to it just like you could with a physical mixing board. Currently I have set it up so that my microphone runs through it as well as any other app i route to it and it is all played both for me on my headset and to the world wherever I decide to stream it. The microphone is muted on my end so that I don't have to hear myself but others can hear me still. It is early days and many options aren't supported by the accessibility addon but the fact I could create an optimal config for myself is already great. Let's tell the dev how important their work is, send feedback and suggestions. Happy testing! https://github.com/onyx-and-iris/nvda-voicemeeter ##Blind #ScreenReaders #A11y #Audio #Radio

Are #bookwym and #pixelft - think that’s what it’s called - you know that fediverse YouTube alternative.. are they accessible for #blind folk using #screenreaders? Thanks.

@kea_anderson @munchkinbear @nationsblind @President while these programs are great I would love to see something similar being organized for #blind teens and adults, as an admin for the #blind communities on https://ourblind.com/ we regularly have to help both new and lifelong bvi individuals with everything from finding services, life skills, #braille, use of assistive tech including #screenreaders, and O&M because of the restrictions or outright lack of these in many areas. Even my nfb chapter has been attempting to organize braille lessons for members because of the lack of actual options between restrictions on state services and the decline of the Hadley program as helpful for most people whom I have spoken to about this, including one of their own braille instructors.

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague told me they were too young to have used Nuance Talks. Which made me feel both old, and sad that they'd never experienced one of the best #ScreenReaders ever made. #accessibility

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague told me they were to young to have used Nuance Talks. Which made me feel both old, and sad that they'd never experienced one of the best #ScreenReaders ever made. #accessibility

there are some easy ways #Android #screenreaders could be way faster but developers aren't doing it for some reason. For example when you single tap somewhere on the screen to find out what's there, all the current Android screen readers wait a bit to see if you'll tap again so that they would instead register adouble tap. After that time passes and you don't tap again, only then it'll actually say what's under your finger. Problem is, that wait time is pretty long - humans can double tap way faster than that! If they add an option to make that time shorter, it'd speed things up a ton.
And that's just one way. Now that we got multi-finger gestures, if they ditched diagonal gestures it'd also boost performance. That's because without diagonal gestures, as soon as you swipe enough for it to count as a swipe, it will register a swipe at that direction and immediately perform the action bound to that gesture without waiting until you lift your finger to see if you'll change directions for a diagonal swipe. They could have this as a toggle too, so people who want diagonal swipes could still get them, but it'd be optional instead of mandatory.
I would really like to be able to contribute the changes like that but unfortunately I know nothing about native Android development. #accessibility #blind

Finally I got a good catch on just how wack AI language model hallucinations can get and how believable they'll seem to folks who don't know any better.
I asked #chatGPT to list some third party #screenreaders for #Android besides the default one. If you know anything about screen readers, you'll be like "Hell naw!" when you see the model's output.
Output below:
. 1. VoiceOver: VoiceOver is a screen reader developed by Apple for its iOS devices, but it's also available as a third-party option for Android. It provides spoken feedback and enables users to navigate, interact, and control their Android device using gestures and voice commands. 2. JAWS: JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is a popular screen reader primarily designed for Windows computers. However, there is an Android version of JAWS available as well, allowing blind and visually impaired users to access Android devices and applications. 3. NVDA: NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is another well-known screen reader for Windows, and it also has an experimental version for Android. NVDA provides speech output and braille support, empowering users with visual impairments to access Android devices.

4 through 6 is shine plus speel and voice assistant which are valid Android screen readers so I'll at least give it that

Staying still in the land of open source projects, this slipped yesterday through my Reddit reading:
FeedGears is a web-based, self-hostable RSS client with particular attention to accessibility. According to the dev, it was tested against the WCAG 2.1 guidelines on the AA level, has integrated shortcuts, consistent keyboard navigation and automatic announcements for system events. It's pretty new so a lot of features might be missing but that's for the contact mechanisms and the feedback. :)
I haven't tested this myself yet but the landing page looks definitely alright.
https://feedgears.com/
#Accessibility #OpenSource #RSS #Blind #ScreenReaders

Browsing Github last night, I came across two interesting, potentially accessible open source projects related to radio.
1. Salamandra Radio - an automation software for station in its early development. Screen reader specific fixes have been mentioned in the release notes and so were hotkeys, although these do not seem to be documented anywhere; the app starts in Portuguese by default but a change to English is possible in the settings; also buttons in the toolbar do not seem to be labelled but upon focusing them, a tooltip is read out so we can go by those to tell what the buttons are doing.
https://github.com/ocarolino/salamandraRadio/
2. Axios - a simple radio player supporting the Radio Browser API. It is accessible in a similar way as Salamandra, allows for searching the directory, playing whatever is found, and controlling the volume.
https://github.com/z1lvis/Axios
Feel free to explore, hack, spread the word or do whatever else you usually do in such cases.
#Accessibility #Blind #ScreenReaders #Radio #OpenSource

@Mrfunkedude remember to it’s most effective to include #hashtags in the content of your post so they have context for people using #ScreenReaders —and help us #ADHD folks grab on to something within the text as we scroll through our feeds.

I woke up with the latest #TalkBack version installed (13.1) in my mobile. Sadly, the easy access to actions doesn't work on my device... I can find them and navigate between them, but double tapping does nothing.

I'm going to check later if something is misconfigured, since this isn't the first time an update has broken my #Android #ScreenReader.

I'm using a Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 with MIUI 12.5.2.0 (Android 11). Tested in notifications and Tusky.

#Accessibility #A11y #ScreenReaders

Hey, #fediverse! Allow me to introduce you to 2 of the best #websites I've ever used.

1. #FileInfo. This site allows you to get information on virtually any file extension you can think of, including file type (text/binary), the developer of the file type, and programs that can open that file. Simply enter the file extension into the search field and hit enter, and the details on that file extension are right there! File Info can be accessed at https://fileinfo.com/. You can also pull up an entry directly by adding /extension/file_extension to the end of the URL. For example, https://fileinfo.com/extension/exe.
2. #TechTerms. Similar to File Info, Tech Terms is a database of basically any computing/technology term you can think of. Again, enter the term you want into the search box and hit enter, and the entry for that term will be shown right away. What's also cool about this site is that after each entry, there is a heading for citation links, so you can include the entry in an essay, dissertation or other publication. Also, if there is a noteworthy term in a File Info entry that is in the Tech Terms dictionary, the File Info entry will hyperlink to it. Tech Terms also has a free app for #iOS, though I'm not sure about #Android. In case you haven't guessed already, File Info and Tech Terms are from the same developers. Tech Terms can be accessed at https://techterms.com. You can also append /definition/term to the end of the URL to access a result directly, for example https://techterms.com/definition/website.
All these websites are #accessible for the #blind and #VisuallyImpaired for use with #ScreenReaders, such as #JAWS or #NVDA. In the case of Tech Terms, the app is also accessible with Apple's built-in #VoiceOver screen reader.

Today I've removed the 🧡 from name so it's easier for people using #ScreenReaders to interact with Mastodon without it getting bogged down reading "Orange Heart emoji" every time.

They are nice to look at but if you have emoji in your name consider removing it for the sanity of those with visual impairments.

@atomicpoet thanks for this post - and thanks for leaving it up - really interesting. I am intrigued as to what #screenreaders do with other non-ascii character sets in Unicode (eg cyrillic or Greek script )

#firefox 107 did something that made it quite annoying to use with #screenreaders. But I'll get used to it... Basically, previously when you switch tabs, your #ScreenReaders will usually just say the newly switched-to tab title. Now it says something like: "Browser tabs tool bar. <tab-title>", which is really inconvenient when you just want to know where you are.
Again, I'm sure it won't be long before I get used to it, but I wish it would go away and revert back to how it used to be.

#Accessibility question for those of you who use #ScreenReaders:
If someone posts, say a photo of a sunset for example, and the caption says "a beautiful sunset" or something similar and descriptive, do you mind if the photo itself doesn't have #AltText?

RT @zersiax@twitter.com

omg trying out @pentesterlab@twitter.com and seeing that the web-based UNIX challenges actually show console output in text, making #screenReaders able to read them. That is a huge #accessibility win, well done folks :)

Just wanted to thank @Cheeseness and anyone else who put an image description of their avatar and or header image in their bio. It's always really cool to understand more about the person you're talking to and how they see them selves, so when people take the time to do that, it's really appreciated! :)

IMO the avatar is just as if not more important than the username for representing someone, so if Screen Reader users, people on low speed connections ETC get locked out of that, it can remove valuable context.
So if anyone would like to take a crack at doing this them selves, it would be really cool of you. And if you don't have the spoons or the words, consider posting to #Alt4Me with a request for some assistance from the great fedi community! :)
#ImageDescription
#AltText
#disability
#accessibility
#A11y
#blind
#VisuallyImpaired
#VisionImpaired
#ScreenReader
#ScreenReaders

Quick question for #Accessibility especially for those of you using #ScreenReaders: how do you prefer people add emphasis to their words: (A) surround them with asterisks, (B) surround them with underscores, (C) all caps, or (D) something else?

@melvin @Erstwhile oh wow. You’ve posted a lot. A quick l glance through them and I notice you don’t use hashtags and so are wholly reliant on follows and boosts.

When talking about a subject use a combination of general and more specific #Hashtags inline in your content. It works well for #ScreenReaders especially if you capitalise them with ‘CamelCase’. Not only that but hashtags gives sighted users some waymarks too.

Ultimately they’re how search works on Mastodon so they’re pretty vital.