Educational advisory service JISC TechDis, UK, has announced the beta release of a new internet browser tool that seeks to make information on the web more accessible for everyone, especially disabled users.
The JISC TechDis toolbar has been created in partnership with the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science. The free application, released as a beta version, provides a range of editing and speech tools to enable internet users to better access information and interact with web pages. This is particularly useful for researchers and learners to complete research and gather information for their studies.
Features such as the text to speech function, where users can have either the whole page or highlighted text read out loud, have been designed to support partially sighted users to enable quicker and easier access to what they need. The toolbar also provides a simple way to adjust the magnification or font used on web pages in order to make it easier to read.
Users can now browse a web page or search for what they are looking for without having to read through the entire text. This can then be collated and exported to a Word document or notepad. Editing tools such as spell check, dictionary, and font and style formatting can also be selected and applied when working within an interactive web resource such as a blog or social media site.
The toolbar can be accessed using a ‘favourites folder’ and applied to individual websites (Lite version), or downloaded onto a PC or Mac to be applied to all web pages accessed. It is designed to work with all operating systems and browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
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