What is a Screen Reader?

Screen readers have been around for a long time. So long in fact, that the earliest version of screen readers may have been around well before you were born. Despite this, knowledge about them is not all that widespread, and there are those out there that are not even aware of what a screen reader is.

Well, if this sounds like you, don’t worry. In this article, we are going to be telling you everything you need to know about screen readers, as well as diving into a few situations where using screen readers becomes near essential.

Inclusivity At Its Finest

To give you a brief introduction to screen readers; a screen reader is a software that reads text from a screen out loud. You can find screen readers all over the place – they are on most websites, the majority of applications, as well as anywhere else where text is displayed in bulk.

As you would expect, this has a wide range of applications all over the board. However, perhaps the most notable of which is helping those that are visually impaired. With screen readers, those with visual impairments can use the internet almost as well as anyone else, and they are an essential inclusivity tool for exactly that reason.

In addition to this, they can also be helpful for those with disabilities or learning difficulties. When paired with something like an accessibility overlay, screen readers can help people with disabilities to use the internet and its various functions with relative ease, and without it, many people would be outright unable to access many of the amenities that the web offers.

A Utensil With a Plethora of Uses

Now that we have answered the question of “what is a screen reader”, we can now go on to talk about its uses past that of accessibility and inclusivity. Whilst the list of uses for a technology akin to screen readers is near endless, there are a few of note that are much more prominent than others.

For one, many people choose to use screen readers for reading text on a web page while multitasking. This can increase your productivity drastically, and it is a mainstay in the arsenal of many college/university students.

On top of this, another use for screen readers is that of proofreading text. We all know just how monotonous proofreading can be, especially when it’s for a work project we are not all too fond of. Screen readers provide an excellent solution to this, and it can make double-checking that ten thousand word group meeting assignment just that little bit easier.

All in all, a screen reader is an essential tool that allows people who would not usually be able to access a computer all too easily to do so to their heart’s content. Moreover, that goes without mentioning the various applications they have outside of accessibility, and there is no doubt that they have helped millions of people around the world.