Users and industry rush to support assistive technology

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Tuesday, 23 August 2011 15:00pm

NV Access, the developer of the free NVDA screen reader, has received US$21,200 in donations from users in addition to funding from several organisations since its request in January. This will lead to a number of improvements to accessibility for those who are blind or vision impaired.

One of the supporting organisations is software company Adobe which has contracted NV Access to enhance NVDA's support for Adobe products. This will improve access to PDFs, electronic forms, e-books and other digital documents for users who are blind or vision impaired. NV Access will also work on improving Adobe Flash Player’s accessibility issues.

Mozilla has provided NV Access with a US$80,000 grant to improve NVDA’s support for rich text editing and document browsing. The cooperation with Mozilla will also ensure the screen reader will be updated along with new developments of Firefox and other Mozilla applications.

Online media company Yahoo! has funded further developments in NVDA’s support for WAI-ARIA which will improve not only the latest version of Yahoo! Mail but will benefit other websites using similar functions and thus improve the overall screen reader user experience.

As NV Access’s products are free, this latest funding will allow the organisation to continue for another year. Further funding and donations are needed to secure its growth in the future.


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