You may follow an accessibility testing procedure from the University of Michigan. For more information about NVDA, see the NVDA 2015.1 User Guide. See a survey on the preference of screen reader users, and read about one individual’s experience in testing web accessibility with a screen reader. Since there is a significant overlap between accessibility and usability, an accessible website tends to be easier to navigate and read by both visual and non-visual users.ĭownload NVDA and install it on your Windows computer.

By understanding how users of screen readers navigate and read your website, you will gain insight on how your website is being used and the reasoning behind the guidelines in WCAG 2.0, such as providing image alternative text that is descriptive, meaningful, and succinct. You can evaluate the accessibility of your website(s) using NVDA.

Section 14(2) of the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (IASR) in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) states that designated public sector organizations, like the University of Waterloo, shall make their public websites and web content conform with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, initially at Level A by January 2014 and increasing to Level AA by January 2021. If stored on a USB flash drive, NVDA can run on any Windows computer without installing or requiring administrative privileges. Users can control what NVDA reads by using their keyboard and/or mouse. Screen readers enable people with blindness, visual impairments, and/or reading disabilities to use computers and browse websites by reading out loud the text and alternative text on the screen. NVDA is a free and open-source screen reader for Microsoft Windows.

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