4 Important Facts About Computer Access By the Visually Impaired

Aside from the fact that many visually impaired computer users cannot see the screen properly, there is two important facts which needs to be understood and kept in mind when giving instructions to them. They are:

1. They cannot have birds-eye view of the screen.
2. It is often very difficult for them to recognize dynamic changes taking place on the screen.

Assistive technologies help to overcome these facts in great extent, however, they do not eliminate these facts. Instructors need to help the users to do the following:

1. Get an idea of what is on the screen.
2. Understand the important pieces of information on the screen.
3. Find out the shortest path to get to the information users need to access.
4. Find out the shortest path to get to the places where users need to enter important information.
5. Understand the behavior of application programs so that they would know what changes on the screen to look out for.
6. Find a mean to recognize important changes on the screen.

The ultimate goal is that users can do all the above by themselves. This, however, is not easy for many users, especially for beginners. In order to help them achieve these goals, instructors need to understand application programs well enough to provide those information to users as well as understand the specific needs of the user.