Accessibility Task Force
Bringing together accessibility specialists from across the world, the Accessibility Task Force works with accessibility organizations, technology vendors and others to help promote Web accessibility.
The Accessibility Task Force plays a key role in assisting product developers and manufacturers to improve Web standards support within their products.
The Task Force also works towards promoting a better understanding of Web accessibility by designers and developers, corporate organizations and government institutions.
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Task Force Buzz
WebAIM screenreader survey…the results are in
By Patrick Lauke | January 31st, 2009
Hat-tip to ATF member Jared Smith:
WebAIM recently conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users. With over 1100 responses, the results of this survey provide much useful information about screen reader user demographics and preferences. Some of the results were quite surprising. This comprehensive survey of screen reader user preferences provides much needed insight into this diverse group of screen reader users.
Here are a few findings:
- The most common screen readers used are JAWS (74%), Window-Eyes (23%), NVDA (8%), and VoiceOver (6%).
- 75% of screen reader users upgrade to the newest version within one year.
- 12% of respondents use a screen reader on a mobile phone.
- 76% of users always or often navigating by headings.
- 36% never or seldom use text-only versions of web pages.
- 72% of screen reader users reported that Flash is very or somewhat difficult.
There is much, much more to be learned about this diverse group of screen reader users at the survey results page.
It’s great to see some actual data and feedback from real screenreader users, instead of always hearing anecdotal evidence and generalised assumptions from designers and developers. As the disclaimer notes, the actual user sample was not controlled, some of the questions may have been too technical, and some responses may have been tainted by previous experiences with badly-coded and inaccessible sites.
Perhaps the most significant conclusion we can make from these survey results is that there is no typical screen reader user.
One thing I’d like to see in any future survey would be actual testcases that respondents are asked to evaluate, which may give more representative results. In the meantime though I’d like to thank the WebAIM team for their effort and look forward to the more in-depth analysis of the data gathered from this survey.
More Buzz articles
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation | December 11th, 2008 |
| BSI British Standards invites comments on new draft standard on accessible web content | December 1st, 2008 |
| Call-to-action: Save the UT Accessibility Institute | August 29th, 2008 |
| What the Target settlement should mean to you | August 28th, 2008 |