Welcome to the Spring 2024 Issue of AccessWorld! This issue marks a year since we refocused the AccessWorld publication. Over the last year, we have been thrilled to bring our readers more knowledge content useful to developers of websites, apps, and other software. Not only that, but it has also been exciting to expand AccessWorld into new mediums.
Starting in October of 2023, we launched our AccessWorld podcast, where we cover topics related to blindness/low vision and accessibility, with a specific focus on digital inclusion. We frequently have guests from the accessibility industry and related fields present on the podcast as well. If you are interested in learning more about our podcast, you can find past episodes and other information on this page.
We have also expanded AccessWorld content to AFB's main blog. If you follow AFB's blog, you will have noticed that much of the content that was a staple of AccessWorld in years past, such as conference coverage and operating system update guides and reviews, is now present on the blog. This allows us to continue providing this popular content alongside the more focused digital inclusion-based content of AccessWorld while also reaching new readers. If you would be interested in more AccessWorld content outside of the publication proper, be sure to check out our blog here and sign up for alerts. Notably, we publish content on the blog in between our monthly releases.
For this anniversary of our refocused AccessWorld, the issue includes the following articles:
First, Jamie Pauls brings us a review of the latest releases of Zoom's essential series of standalone audio recorders. We were particularly interested in reviewing these recorders as Zoom has now included accessibility features in the form of speech feedback and other auditory cues. This is noteworthy because, due to the nature of these recorders as standalone devices, accessibility had to be implemented from scratch, and developers could not rely on existing screen readers to provide accessibility.
Next, writer and web developer Hannah Thompson offers her debut article. In her piece, Hannah details her experience learning and implementing accessibility fixes into her web application without having prior knowledge of accessibility beforehand. We are thrilled to offer this article, as many developers still are not aware of accessibility and its nuances. We wanted to illustrate the process of what it might be like for someone new to the topic and seeking information and resources on how to implement access changes.
Hannah's piece inspired me to write an article for web developers who would like to use a screen reader to test the accessibility and usability of their websites on their own, either to determine if accessibility fixes need to be made or when testing fixes that have been applied to a page or web app. In the article, I detail how a developer can go about using the NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader, with the aim of providing a clear and concise guide to get someone up and running with NVDA on the web.
My second article in this issue details an accessibility feature released by Apple that I believe could be a major game-changer in accessibility. Apple's Screen Recognition feature has been available for several years and uses machine learning to recognize user interface (UI) elements in an app, even if the app itself is completely inaccessible to VoiceOver. I use Screen Recognition frequently to access apps that have no accessibility whatsoever, where VoiceOver cannot detect anything, and I find it to be an amazing tool. With the recent developments in AI vision technology and as more action-based AI models are on the horizon, it felt like a great time to spotlight this amazing technology.
Finally, Michele McDonnall of the The National Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC) brings us a report of findings from a research project conducted by the NRTC and us here at AFB. The project aims to determine the accessibility of job application websites by surveying in detail 30 Fortune 500 companies' job application websites and the applications themselves. In this article, it was discovered that though applications have improved in accessibility since research was done 10 to 12 years earlier, there are still significant barriers to applying for jobs as someone who is blind or low vision and uses a screen reader on the web. Considering the importance of employment for people who are blind and low vision and the struggles that still persist in this area, we felt it vitally important to bring knowledge of this topic to our readership.
I hope that you have enjoyed the refocused AccessWorld over the past 12 months as well as the current issue. If you have any comments, questions, or other thoughts, feel free to reach out to me by email at apreece@afb.org.
Sincerely,
Aaron Preece
AccessWorld Editor-in-Chief
American Foundation for the Blind
