Improving usability for screen reader users

Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users is unfortunately

not enough to ensure these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so incredibly poor that they needn't have bothered coming to your site.

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Fortunately, there are plenty of simple-to-implement guidelines you can follow, which not only drastically improve usability for screen reader users, but for all web users:

1. Descriptive headings

The use of on-page headings is one of the most important usability features for screen reader users, as it helps them more easily understand the page structure. Although text on the page may appear to be a heading for sighted users, it must be labelled as a heading within the HTML code for screen reader users to know it is a heading.

Screen readers don't look at web pages - they read through the HTML code. If a piece of text is called a heading within the HTML code then the screen reader will announce that it's a heading. If not, screen reader users won't actually know if something that visually appears to be a heading is actually a heading.

Another usability benefit of using headings for screen reader users, is that these users can call up a list of on-page headings and jump to the section of the page in which they're most interested. This works in much the same way as sighted web users scanning through web pages by glancing at headings. If headings are descriptive of the content contained beneath them it becomes far easier for screen reader users to find the information which they're after.

2. Descriptive link text

Screen reader users can browse through web pages by calling up a list of on-page links, and activating the link in which they're most interested. As such, non-descriptive link text such as click here' should be avoided at all costs as it makes no sense whatsoever out of context.

The good news is that the use of descriptive link texts represents a usability benefit for everyone. When we scan through web pages, one of the items that stands out to us is link text. Click here' is totally meaningless to web users scanning through pages and forces users to hunt through surrounding text to discover the link destination.

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3. Lists

Using lists within the HTML code is extremely useful for screen reader users, as screen readers announce the number of items in each list before reading out the list items. This helps these users know what to expect when hearing a list of items (such as site navigation).

This works in mush the same way as an answer phone telling you how many messages you have, before listening to them. By informing you of how many messages you have, you instantly know what to expect. If there's only one or two messages you can probably remember them; much more and you'll probably want to get a pen and paper and make notes.

Improving usability for screen reader users

By: Martin Richardson

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