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Accessibility assistance for visually-impaired people in digital texts

Department of Education and Social Policy, University of Macedonia, Greece, kpapado{at}uom.gr

Dimitrios B. Goudiras

Department of Education and Social Policy, University of Macedonia, Greece, dbg{at}uom.gr

The use and applications of new technologies in the education of the visually impaired have made substantial strides forward in recent years. New technology allows the visually impaired to enjoy better access to information, to read for themselves and, by extension, to improve their learning literacy. Nevertheless, despite the advances made in assistant technology, a number of problems have arisen in relation to the limited experience of both users and teachers in handling that technology. Teachers also need to take into account the diversity of characteristics of impaired vision in the visually-impaired population, taking steps to make the educational material available with effective colour contrast and in legible text. The aforesaid problems are even more severe for teachers in the regular classroom. This article describes the effective colour contrast and legible text required by visually-impaired students and presents a new tool, not intended merely to provide another form of computer access for the partially sighted, but to offer a means of education in the regular classroom.

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