Aaron Preece, AccessWorld Editor in Chief

When making digital technology accessible for people using screen readers, the implementation may be of varying levels of complexity, but the task is, in most situations, relatively straightforward: "Is this element labeled and viewable to the screen reader or not?" When we discuss accessibility, we generally are referring to websites, but this holds true for the vast majority of other modern digital interfaces including apps, desktop software, even operating system UIs. Images tend to be a…

Accessibility is always improving, but 2023 saw one of the most significant accessibility breakthroughs since the advent of the accessible smartphone. GPT4, produced by Open AI, is a Large Language Model (LLM) that can accept both text and images. In summary, you can converse with an LLM much like you would with a person, and it will respond in a manner closely approximating human interaction. Also, the most powerful LLMs such as Open AI's GPT and Google's Bard, perform various tasks only…

One of the most exciting developments in refreshable braille display technology is the creation of market-viable multi-line braille displays. While single-line braille displays have been in production for many decades, multi-line displays have only become widely available in the past half-decade or so. Currently, several multi-line displays are available or soon to be released. In this piece, I want to highlight three such displays: the Orbit Slate, the Canute 360, and the Monarch. Orbit…

Just after I published this piece on game accessibility in the fall issue of AccessWorld, a game was brought to my notice that used one of the access methods I discussed in that piece. The game is called Conjury, and uses the Unity Accessibility Plugin to provide access to the user interface (UI) for people who use screen readers. The game is a turn based card game, meaning that by making the UI accessible, the game itself is entirely playable. I was excited to bring information on this game to…

Over the years, we have published a great deal of material related to employment in our AccessWorld magazine. Though much of the content we have published is time specific, there are still many articles with information and advice still of use today. Historically, we published a column in AccessWorld titled Employment Matters, now our Employment Journeys series, which detailed the life and work of people who are blind and or low vision and successfully employed. In addition to providing a…

One of our goals at AFB is to promote wide spread high-level change in society for people who are blind or have low vision. One way we do so, in the Digital Inclusion space in particular, is by encouraging the employment of people who are passionate and knowledgeable about accessibility in the technology industry. Providing suggestions from the outside can only go so far; having people who think of accessibility during the product development process and have the knowledge to bring it about is…

If you are a long time AccessWorld reader, you may remember our reviews of various JAWS scripts and additions-our review of Leasey the most prominent. In a similar vein, I wanted to share some of the addons for the NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader that I find invaluable. If you are new to NVDA addons, they are additional packages that can be added to NVDA to provide extra functionality or make an inaccessible app or software accessible, much like JAWS scripts. In the most recently…

Since they saw mainstream adoption in the early 20th century, guide dogs have changed the navigational landscape for many people who are blind or low vision and served as a positive symbol of independence to society at large. To celebrate this National Guide Dog Month, I wanted to share some of my personal journey working with guide dogs over the past 12 years. Even though everyone's reasoning for choosing to partner with a guide dog is different, it has been an incredible experience for me…

Since 2015, we celebrate Disability Pride Month each July in honor of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was passed in 1990. For anyone unfamiliar with me, I'm Aaron Preece, editor of AFB's AccessWorld Technology and Digital Inclusion publication. I have severe low vision due to a degenerative retinal condition. For context, I primarily function as blind, e.g., using a screen reader and am not able to get any use out of magnification. When I was considering…