How Do Visually Impaired People Use The Computer

After examining how blind people use the computer let's see how people with limited vision do the same. For the sake of this post, we define visual impairment as the condition where the person is able to read or see anything on the screen, but not considered to have perfect vision. In some cases, the term "visually impaired" applies to people with all visual limitations, including blindness.

The majority of people who have some kind of a visual impairment, can still use the computer just like those who don't. Probably, the only technology many will use is a pair of glasses.

Others will need to magnify portions of the screen, or change the contrast. To a great extent, operating systems do provide this functionality. In most operating systems, you can run a screen magnification program, or adjust the contrast settings, but it only works with certain applications, which do not disable the functionality of the operating system. If they do, it can create a major accessibility problem.

When using the internet, most browsers allow users to quickly change the size of the font, or even turn off the whole style sheet which is responsible for the layout of the web site. While it might totally change the layout of a page, it also presents information in a more readable manner, or allows people to use their own style sheets which suits their vision the best.

Some people need a more sophisticated solution, a screen magnification system which is usually coupled with advanced functionality. These systems can be highly customized, they allow more complex customization of color and contrast, and most of them provide screen reader functionalities too. This allows people to carry out tasks on the computer, but when it comes to reading longer texts, instead of using their eyes, they can just switch between using the screen reader and the magnification.

Have you had any experience with the above technologies? If not, try any of the following to see how it works in practice.

• Turn off styles in your browser. In Internet Explorer 8, go to the View menu, select Style, and No Style.
• Adjust the contrast in Windows after pressing Alt-Shift-Scroll lock.
• Magnify the screen by selecting Magnifier under programs/accessibility