6 Jun 2012
The annual screenreader user survey is out, at http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/
If you've not seen it before, it is definitely worth the five minutes it will take you to scan through. Its results contradict a lot of received wisdom about screenreader behaviours, and clarify some common uncertainties.
Main takeaways:
- Screenereader users love headings for navigating around a page
- 1.4% don’t have JS on, so your biggest user base without JS is going to be search bots.
- 82.7% update their software
- JAWS is still dominant, but decreasing due to uptake in NVDA (free) and VoiceOver (Mac, iOS)
- CAPTCHA is still a massive pain. Only Flash is worse for difficulty
- Quite a lot are using mobiles with screenreaders