The INSIDER Summary:
• You might think blind people can't use smartphones or tablets.
• But plenty of devices contain software that makes them totally accessible for the blind.
• Here's a look at how they work.
If you're a person with normal vision, you probably spend most days staring at screens — smartphones, tablets, and computers are our window to the world, and we interact with them primarily using our eyes. So at first glance, it seems like people who can't see would be totally cut off from these technologies.
The truth is that you don't need sight to use devices like smartphones. Thanks to some simple accessibility tweaks and software, blind people can navigate websites and use apps just like the rest of us. Here's how.
Using smartphones
"When Steve Jobs unveiled the very first iPhone at Macworld on January 9, 2007, the blind community more or less went into panic mode," wrote Bill Holton in a 2015 issue of AccessWorld Magazine. "If touch screen interfaces were the future, were we going to be left out in the dark?"
It turned out that they weren't: About six months later, Apple announced that it had updated is mobile operating system to include a new standard feature called VoiceOver.
VoiceOver reads the contents of a smartphone's screen out loud, allowing the user to browse apps, open links, type texts and emails — really anything — with ease. This video from blind YouTuber Tommy Edison is a few years old, but it gives a nice, clear demonstration of how VoiceOver works.
Apple was a pioneer in this regard, and they're still considered the best in the industry when it comes to accessibility.
"Apple has done such a tremendous job with their products and the accessibility is built in directly to the phones," Julie Deden, executive director of the Colorado Center for the Blind, told INSIDER. "Anyone buying an iPhone can just, if they happen to be a blind person, put VoiceOver on. And they're able to pretty much access everything."
Android phones also have a built-in screen reader called TalkBack.
Plus, lots of smartphones are equipped with an on-screen magnifier, large text option, and high-contrast viewing mode to assist people with low vision.
Browsing websites
Screen-reading software also helps blind people browse the Internet on laptops or desktop computers, according to the National Federation for the Blind (NFB). It reads the contents of a page out loud, and a system of keyboard shortcuts helps the the blind navigate pages without using a mouse.
Some blind people use refreshable braille displays like this one (below). Think of it like a living keyboard that translates on-screen text into Braille right beneath the user's fingertips. They also allow the user to type in braille. (Many smartphones and tablets are compatible with displays like this, too!)
Blind tech users still face some challenges
Not all websites are built with the blind in mind. For example, a blind person might navigate a site by jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink, trying to find what she's looking for. This means the actual words that comprise a hyperlink are super important. A hyperlink on the phrase "How to contact us" is helpful, but a hyperlink on the phrase "Click here" isn't.
The blind also benefit from "alt tags": strings of text added by website developers that are hidden to normal viewers, but crucial for the blind.
Alt tags describe what is in a picture, like, "a sliced pineapple," or "President George Washington." When alt tags are present, screen-reading software will read them out loud. When they're not present, the software may try to read the image's filename, which could be something totally useless, like "image1.jpeg." Suffice it to say, this is a frustrating experience for blind people.
Finally, Deden said that some new technologies — like airport ticket kiosks and "smart" home appliances — lack accessibility completely.
"If manufacturers built in accessibility from the beginning, it wouldn't cost any more at all," she said. "So we're really working hard to get that to happen. We have to keep up on it all [because] technology changes so fast."
Read more about technology and accessibility at the NFB's website.
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