Adaptive technology and program to improve computer accessibility
What are adaptive technologies?
There are Assistive and Adaptive technology and they are both used to help people with disabilities to be able access modern technologies just as if they were normal people.
Adaptive technology is a small part of assistive technology, it is specifically designed for people with disabilities, specifically with physical disabilities like visually impaired, deaf, and sensory impaired.
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What are some programs?
Screen magnifier
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Many people already heard of this but screen magnifiers are used to zoom in and focus on a specific point the user chose. It makes reading articles and words on a screen much easier for people with disabilities and sometimes it even helps people without disabilities.
- Colour inversion: people who use magnifier tend to use colour inversion to help with reading. For example people change the background and text colour so it doesn't strain their eyes and it makes the text stand out more so it's easier to identify the texts.
- Crosshair: when it is hard to see the mouse pointer people tend to use crosshair which is customizable and makes it easier to identify where the pointer is.
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Touchscreen
Touchscreen is a display that can recognize human touch or sometimes even a stylus works too.
Most of our devices like phones and touchscreen computers are used in our daily life. There are many different types of touch screens:
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- Resistive touch screen: pressure sensitive
- Capacitive: more durable but only detect devices that are grounded
- Infrared: a pretty popular one, can detect both finger and stylus
- Surface acoustic wave (SAW): much more advanced but is expensive and not well supported
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How it helps blind or visually impaired
Bigger monitors, larger buttons
Very accessible to commands
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