Assistive Technology

Here is a list of freely available assistive technology products for the Windows platform:

NVDA
WebAnywhere
System Access

Commercial assistive products are also available.

NVDA

For Windows users who are blind or vision impaired a more advanced text-to-speech program is available called NVDA. This program operates a little bit like the built-in tool Narrator, but is able to read information from web pages more effectively in Firefox. NVDA is free and can be downloaded from the NVDA website.

The Firefox web browser will also need to be downloaded and is available from the Mozilla website.

WebAnywhere

For people that need to use a computer in a public place or in areas where software cannot be installed an application called WebAnywhere can help.

WebAnywhere operates as a text-to-speech tool that integrates into the web browser in virtually any operating system, providing basic voice access to the Internet. The voice software can work on almost any computer with sound and will start almost immediately by going to the WebAnywhere website.

System Access

Online screenreader, free, available from any Internet-connected Windows machine.

Trial download available from the System Access to Go website.

System Access supports Microsoft Internet Explorer (including DHTML/Ajax and Flash), Outlook Express, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Skype, and Adobe Reader. No support for Java yet.

Commerical assistive technology products

Other popular assistive technology products include the JAWS and WindowEyes screen readers, and the ZoomText, MAGic and iZoom screen magnifiers.  For purchasing information on these products, please contact your local disability services organisation.