Browsing the web can be a very inconsistent experience for anyone, but when you’re a person with disabilities, those minor inconveniences might actually become massive barriers.

Today we are going to look at tool that is designed to make reading on the web much easier for persons with disabilities, students, and essentially anyone else who reads content online. Helperbird is an accessible reading and writing toolbar that functions as an extension to virtually any browser. The app offers a variety of reading features including Reading Mode, Immersive Reader, Highlight Menu, and more. It also allows you to tweak and customize the look of the content you are reading, from fonts, to colors, to spacing, borders, and more.

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Today we going to look at something a bit different. Rather than our usual app review, we are going to look at a piece of hardware which has a ton of potential to be used as AT, even though it wasn’t originally designed as such.

The Stream Deck is a PC accessory that gives users an array of extra buttons that can be programmed to do virtually anything you want. Originally designed for streamers and YouTubers, this device can be used to automate virtually any task, which means it has a ton of potential for persons with physical disabilities.

And because this device was designed for a mainstream audience, the price is very reasonable with the smallest version of the device costing just over a $100 for an eight-button controller.

For example, you could program one button to turn on your computer, open teams, and open a word doc. That’s just one of many examples. A button could also be used to toggle accessibility features such as Read Aloud, or to pull up all accessibility settings. The possibilities are endless.

The programming interface is easy to use, and it gives you a lot of flexibility in how you program your buttons. Additionally, Stream Deck uses a series of built-in and downloadable plugins to enhance the user’s experience. Some examples of free plug-ins include Control Center, Win Tools, YouTube, and much more. These plugins are easy to access directly from the Stream Deck interface, or you can browse the available plugins here.

The Stream Deck also allows users to create and save profiles, which is great for multi-user integration, or for people who simply want more control over their device. It also allows users to save specific presets, for example, you could set up a specific audio preset just for listening to podcasts, or for having content read aloud.

With all that in mind, we can see that the utility of this device as a piece of assistive technology is virtually endless and is only limited by the imagination of the user. That being said, the Stream Deck is currently only available for Windows or Mac users, but hopefully we will see mobile versions of this device become available over time.

This post originally appeared on the AT Help Desk website.

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On this episode, the AT Help Desk team are joined by accessibility expert Dawn Campbell, who works as a business development manager for Accessibil-IT. We’re going to get into web and digital document accessibility, exploring what document accessibility is, its history, why document accessibility is important, and where you can get help.

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Writing Apps have evolved a lot over the past decade. Where previous apps tended to focus on one area of difficulty, most modern writing apps now offer a suite of functions designed to bolster your writing from start to finish. DocsPlus very much fits into the latter category, offering writing support from first draft to polished final product. Let’s take a closer look at these tools and how they could be useful for struggling writers.

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For over a decade, smartphone cameras have been used to help blind and low-vision individuals connect with the world around them. We’ve looked at some of these apps before, including “Be My Eyes” and “Seeing AI”, and while those apps are still very much worth using, today we are going to take a quick look at a new entry in this space.

TapTapSee is an app for iOS and Android that is designed to help blind and low-vision individuals identify the world around them without the use of a third-party. This is an important distinction because unlike some of the visual assistant apps that already exist in this category such as the aforementioned app “Be My Eyes”, TapTapSee is designed to be used independently.

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iOS 18 has recently been released, and with that release comes even more built-in accessibility features. Today we are going to look at those new tools, along with some new updates that were released to improve upon pre-existing tools. Let’s take a look!

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Today we review some apps for students including Anki Flashcards and MyStudyLife. Then we review some exciting new AT hardware including the Palma 2 e-reader, and more.

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Today we are going to look at one of the higher rated flashcard apps on the app store. We’ve looked at a few of these apps in the past, and today we’re going to look at a flashcard app that does things a bit differently.

Anki is a highly customizable flashcard app that supports images, videos, markup languages such as LaTeX and more. The browser version of the app is free, and through this version of the app, users can have the most freedom in how they create and review their deck.

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When you’re a student studying multiple subjects, staying on top of your school, homework, social life, and work is not an easy task. Of course, you’ve likely been given an agenda at the start of the school year, and while an agenda serves as a decent paper-based organizational tool, you’re probably going to be better off seeking out a digital alternative instead. This is especially true for students with learning differences who tend to perform better within a more flexible digital space.

MyStudyLife is a personal academic assistant that is designed to keep track of your commitments through scheduling, tasks, and reminders. Essentially it does everything that an agenda does, in a digital space, so that you can access your schedule from anywhere on virtually any device. The app was specifically developed for students, so it’s based around an academic calendar where users can input term dates, holidays, classes, exams, extra-curricular activities and more.

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Huge congratulations to Hearing Solutions Audiologist, Danielle Lafleur, on being awarded the 2024 Student Poster Outstanding Research Award (1^st Prize). The project investigates the primary care providers’ behaviour attitudes, and knowledge regarding the hearing health of their older patients. This project was co led by University of British Columbia School of Audiology and Speech Sciences and Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility, and was co funded by Vancouver Foundation and Michael Smith Health Research BC. Danielle accepted the award at the Canadian Academy of Audiology conference this past week.

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