foreign
PDF accessibility Solutions reach
everyone
screen readers accessibility can be seen
every day in things such as handicap
parking spaces closed captioning on your
television or textured Pavements
one of the greatest barriers for people
who are blind or have low vision is
access to written information
if you cannot see or cannot see well
reading can be a difficult or
insurmountable task
this can make using computers
smartphones and the internet something
most of us do every day very difficult
if not impossible
people who have low vision or are blind
may have a wide variety of visual
perception
they may have some Vision but still be
unable to read print or text on a screen
due to color blindness blurry vision
tunnel vision or even Vision within a
regularly obscured field they may be
able to detect light or shadow
or they may see nothing at all and many
people who are blind or have low vision
are able to get around and function
within their environment but still are
unable to see clearly enough to read
screen readers are the most common tools
for accessing digital information that
are used by people who are blind or have
low vision
people who have dyslexia learning
disabilities temporary disabilities such
as concussion other print disabilities
such as stroke or brain injuries and
people who prefer learning through
auditory formats also use screen readers
they provide the information by reading
aloud digitally coded content contained
within the digital documents and
websites
many blind people also use connected
Braille displays which convert the data
provided by the screen reader into
Braille
Braille is the only way for a person who
is deaf-blind to access digital
information
fortunately screen readers are built
into much of our technology now from
your television Hardware to game
consoles to smartphones
and you will find screen reading
technology available on computers
laptops and tablets however screen
readers do not see what is on the screen
they read aloud information provided
digitally by means of digital encoding
for PDF documents this encoding is
called Tags because the screen readers
rely on these digital tags and not the
visual content to read the information
aloud sometimes what a cited person sees
is not what a blind or partially cited
person gets the tags must be applied
correctly in order for the content to be
accurately relayed by the screen reader
tags serve many functions they
communicate structure and relationships
to assistive technology
some are for headings so a person using
a screen reader can skim through the
content much as a sighted person would
do with newspaper headlines
without headings a person using a screen
reader would have to read every single
word to find a specific piece of
information
some tags describe images since people
using assistive technology often cannot
see what they depict
other tags are for reading order so that
the content is not read out of order
just adding an extra line or a paragraph
to your document can throw off the
digital reading order even if it is
visually in the correct place
understanding how content needs to be
tagged is part of learning to produce
accessible documents applications and
websites
let's examine this document using a
screen reader
we have chosen to use nvda as it is a
free download available to anyone
here's what happens when a screen reader
attempts to read a PDF document that is
entirely untagged
PDF sample as image.pdf alert empty
document this document appears to be
empty it may be a scanned image that
needs OCR or it may be a malformed
document
if you are blind or have low vision you
will get no usable information of any
kind about this document
even when a document is tagged it's
important that it be tagged correctly
let's have another look at the same
document this time tagged but only
partially this document is not properly
tagged and you will see some of the
common issues faced by people using
assistive technology to access digital
information
we will be using the Tab Key to move
around the document and we will move
ahead before all content is read in some
cases
you will also see the text being read
highlighted on the page and we will show
the nvda viewer so that you can see what
the screen reader is perceiving
digitally as it reads aloud
note also that there are many voices
available to be used with screen readers
and they can read at great speed if the
person using the technology is able to
keep up much like a sighted person would
speed read
for this demonstration we have chosen a
human sounding voice and set it to a
normal conversational speed
graphic notice that the screen reader
has not identified this image other than
to say graphic
a person using the screen reader will
have no idea what this graphic is
heading level 1 save up to 90 on time
and resources
this content has been read out of order
an entire section of text has been
skipped equidox has helped to improve
our remediate inaccessible PDFs quickly
and easily this text has not been
identified as a heading and again
content read out of order graphic
rectangle graphic rectangle equidox
services
graphic box graphic box graphic box
these descriptions of background
rectangles are unnecessary and confusing
they should not be included heading
level 2 conversion Services heading
level 2 vpats evaluation and completion
heading level 2 accessibility Services
equidox team remediates your PDFs
testing training Consulting and again
content read out of order graphic logo
graphic logo visit
www.equadocs.co or email equidox sales
onyxnet.com
within this short document we have found
the following errors images with no alt
text description
text with incorrect reading order
unidentified headings unnecessary
background objects announced that are
confusing
visually this document is perfectly
comprehensible but because it lacks
correct digital tagging a person using
assistive technology such as a braille
display or screen reader is not going to
get an equivalent experience and more
importantly isn't going to get all the
information
screen readers are a valuable tool for
people who are blind or who have low
vision but they are only as good as the
digital encoding in the documents and
web pages that they are accessing
for more information about how equidox
software company can help you with PDF
accessibility email us at equidox sales
equidox.co or give us a call at
216-529-3030 or visit our website at
www.equidox.co