Web Accessibility in a Browser
As mentioned before in this space, WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader developed by Ph.D. computer science candidate Jeffrey Bigham. WebAnywhere is an open-source web-based screen reader that converts the content on a web page to text and reads it aloud for the user. It’s a lovely way to bridge accessibility for people with disabilities who cannot afford expensive translation software.
WebAnywhere divides your browser screen into two frames; one contains a location bar and search input, and the other displays the sites you navigate to. You can view an introductory video on YouTube, or better yet, try the software out for yourself.
Of course, I tested the WebAnywhere alpha on a couple of sites I regularly use. I was impressed that the software was able to recognize links and header markup, since those are important contextual clues in reading content. I noticed that some punctuation and hyphenated words got lost in the translation, and that labels for some form fields were not indicated as such. These are minor quibbles, though, as Bigham’s work represents a tremendous leap forward in providing accessible browsing services.
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