What Is A Screen Reader?

Date First Published: 2nd February 2024

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Computer Software

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 4/10

CONTENTS

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Screen Readers
Difference Between A Screen Reader and Text-To-Speech Software

Learn about what a screen reader is in this article.

A screen reader is an accessibility software application that converts on-screen text to speech. This helps people with visual impairments to understand digital content and navigate the web. Most operating systems come with a built-in screen reader that can read out text in webpages, documents, and the system user interface.

A screen reader uses a Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine to translate on-screen information into speech, which can be heard through earphones or speakers. A TTS can be a hardware device that plugs into the computer or it can be a software application that is included with the screen reader. Screen readers used to use hardware TTS devices before computers had soundcards, but since soundcards are now installed by default on all computers, most people find that software TTS is more convenient.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Screen Readers

The advantages of screen readers are:

They help people with visual impairments to understand the content of webpages, documents, and images. This helps them to navigate through the web and understand articles, even if they are visually unable to identify images or text.
Screen readers also offer new ways to interact with a computer. For example, accessibility APIs allow screen readers to navigate between sections of the screen using keyboard shortcuts and describe the contents of each section.
Most screen readers also support special peripherals called refreshable braille displays, which constantly change as text is selected.

The disadvantages of screen readers are:

Spelling and grammatical errors can cause screen readers to mispronounce text or sound awkward, making it harder to understand the content.
Screen readers cannot fully mimic a human reading text and use a computer-sounding voice, which some people can find boring.

Unlike a screen reader, text-to-speech software converts digital text into clear and easy-to-understand audio. It is not specifically designed for users with visual impairments, is not installed on the computer, and does not directly read content on the screen. Instead, text-to-speech software is designed to read out text that the user has inputted and allow users to listen to text rather than read it.