14 DAY TRIAL // Computers, even smartphones, thanks to smart software and thoughtful design are accessible to many people with a diverse set of disabilities. Even not being able to see won't prevent you from using a computer. The web though is another matter. And a computer without the web is pretty useless these days.
Google is one of those working to change that. It recently unveiled several accessibility improvements to some of its biggest products, Docs, Calendar and Sites, and more is coming.
"Over the past few months, my colleagues and I have worked closely with advocacy organizations for the blind to improve our products," Naomi Black, Technical Program Manager for Accessibility at Google, wrote.
"We have had a number of meetings with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and American Council of the Blind (ACB) to discuss planned updates, to involve their members in early product testing, and most recently at the end of August to discuss our progress," she said.
Google only recently started working on making many of its products fully accessible to people visual impairments and, while the initial progress has been solid, it needs to do more.
For now, several Apps products, Docs, both the file manager/homepage and the documents and spreadsheets editors, Calendar and Sites, the simple website creator, have implemented better keyboard control support and support for several screen readers.
Separately, Google is working on its own screen reader for Chrome, dubbed ChromeVOX, which also comes in very handy in Chrome OS, which can't run native desktop applications.
But Google has a lot more products that could benefit from the same treatment, Gmail, YouTube and so on, and it can improve the support for the ones it's already started. Still, it's a step in the right direction and Google seems dedicated to continue to add accessibility improvements to its products.