Ask HN: Accessibility tools for knowledge workers with low vision | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Accessibility tools for knowledge workers with low vision

6 pointskjellsbells4 comments

I spend my days in classic knowledge worker apps: Office 365, Teams, Google docs, Confluence, Salesforce, PowerBI etc. I'm also slowly losing my eyesight, and I want to use the time to adapt. The end state will be a sort of fuzzy frosted glass vision rather than total blindness.

What tools should I be looking at to make the transition to a low vision future?

To date, I've been experimenting with voice control and keyboard shortcuts on Mac and Windows. Mac seems quite bad, or perhaps more kindly, it can't do much with modern browser web apps like PowerBI or Salesforce because they have no keybindings. I wonder if Windows would be any better? Overall the transition from standalone desktop apps to web apps seems to have been bad for accessibility, but maybe I'm missing something.

I use Android for my cellphone and with magnification and simple mode I can get by, but maybe iPhone is better. I do notice that many Android apps do not work well when blown up with large type, etc.

What coaching, tools, and tips would you give someone who is trying to get ready for the low vision future?

> What tools should I be looking at to make the transition to a low vision future?

Text readers. The popular is Jaws, which I believe and could be wrong, is Windows only and super expensive. The ones considered best are Apple VoiceOver (already installed with MacOS) and NVDA (free, open source).

The screen readers will take practice navigating around the OS and navigating around web sites. There are still many websites that are garbage at accessibility. Through practice you will also find yourself cranking up the speed from regular of around 150 words per minute to 600-700 words per minute.

To OP: The term for these is "screen readers". NVDA seems pretty popular these days, and some people find it easier to learn. However if you need expensive software like JAWS and live in the US, your employer is probably required to buy it. That's why it costs as much as it does.

On Android you can use TalkBadk which works pretty well. You can set up a shortcut to enable it quickly by pressing both volume buttons at the same time. TalkBack allows even fully blind people to use a normal smartphone.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22918980, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30339187

bad eyes here due to corneal erosions and cataracts, but I don't use voiceover, just large fonts+ inverted contrast - on linux anyway, Gnome. I think windows have way better (quality) text2speech at least than linux

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