by Joe Lonergan
The WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey released its findings last week, Over
1,500 people took part in the study, which was conducted between December
2023 and January 2024.
We had a look at the results and the most interesting findings showed a
growing use of the NVDA screen reader among PC users and Apple's iPhone
remaining the top smartphone of choice for respondents. JAWS maintained its
position as the primary desktop and laptop screen reader for 40.5% of survey
respondents despite experiencing a slight drop in usage in favor of NVDA
which now serves as the primary tool for 37.7% of people who responded to
the survey.
Interestingly, the preference for screen readers varies geographically, with
JAWS leading in North America and Australia, while NVDA finds its stronghold
in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, again the free screen reader
outpaces JAWS in overall usage, so it is official NVDA is now more popular
in Europe then JAWS, at least as far as this survey is concerned.
VoiceOver on Mac usage remained steady at 9.7%. The survey also showed that
people are using screen readers more on mobile devices with 91.3% using
screen readers on such devices, with VoiceOver being the most popular at
70.6%.
The survey highlighted captcha as a major hurdle for users, illustrating the
ongoing struggle to find the right balance between security and
accessibility. This issue becomes particularly apparent during the sign-up
process for services or social media platforms, such as Discord, where
captcha poses a barrier. However, once users overcome this obstacle and
complete the sign-up process, the overall experience tends to be positive.
Another free open-source screen reader that made it into the survey is Orca
for Linux, but this looks to be more of a niche product rather than
mainstream as it is only used by a little over 2% of respondents but even
fewer responded to say they were using Fusion which is a mix of JAWS and
ZoomText. We do know from experience that Fusion is a popular program for
users in the workplace but may not be as popular for home use.
Overall, I think the survey shows that free and open software seems to be
catching up with paid offers. There might be other reasons for this too such
as price and the improvements in built-in screen readers such as Narrator
for Windows and VoiceOver for Mac. All the same, it is interesting to see
the trends going towards NVDA and it looks like people are comfortable to
at least try it out and use it for their primary screen reader.
For now, personally, I still prefer JAWS with the NVDA screen reader coming
in a close 2nd place.
Vision Ireland Technology News.
