Introducing AudioEye’s New Visual Toolkit

“This is our way of being at the tip of the spear of accessibility. AudioEye can now offer customers tools and resources that address issues WCAG hasn’t even gotten to yet.”
                                                                                                                                              Charlie, AudioEye software engineering manager

We’ve done it again! AudioEye has taken accessibility to the next level with the launch of our new Visual Toolkit, accessible from our Accessibility Toolbar. The Visual Toolkit provides a suite of tools enabling the end-user to customize their visual experience:

• Big Cursor: enlarges the cursor display for ease of tracking and improves usability for low-vision users. Users no longer have to track a tiny mouse arrow across the screen.
• Reading Guide: enhances focus and improves reading comprehension by creating a horizontal line controlled by the cursor position. Similar to using your bookmark to underline sentences as you read, this tool creates a moveable line under the text on a screen.
• Emphasize: enhances focus and improves reading comprehension by blurring out the majority of the page view as controlled by the cursor position. Users can focus on just one line of text at a time.
• Contrast: improves readability for users with color blindness. Users can choose to invert colors on the site, make everything black and white, or just change the color scheme for better contrast of elements.
• Keyboard Focus: draws a colorful box around buttons and links, making them easier to find and select for visual keyboard users.
• Highlight Links and Buttons: gives a bright highlight over either headings, links, or the entire text for visual keyboard users.
• Text Size: enlarges web copy for improved readability and usability for low-vision users.
• Text Spacing: changes the distance between words and lines of text. This tool improves the readability of web copy for low-vision users and individuals with cognitive and/or learning disabilities.
• Change Font: can change the font of the text on the page in order to make reading easier. This option includes a font intended to assist individuals with dyslexia.
• Disable Animations: eliminates potential hazards, like moving, flashing animations that may trigger epileptic seizures. It also improves focus and reading comprehension for individuals with cognitive and/or learning disabilities.
• Display Alternate Text: shows the alt text that describes any button or image on the site when hovered over. It provides more context for comprehension for individuals with cognitive and/or learning disabilities.

Here’s what we think is great about our new Visual Toolkit (and we hope you do too):

• All of the tools in the Visual Toolkit are “atomic” meaning they can be combined with other tools or have only one on at a time. If you want both larger font and a larger cursor, but don’t need the contrast tools, you can pick and choose what you need and turn off what you don’t.
• The user experience is consistent across sites. It eliminates any variability in performance or function from one AudioEye-enabled site to another.
• Turnkey implementation: It can be deployed on day one of activation.
• It includes the iFrames on a site. If a site has an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website, like a form or an advertisement, the features and functions enabled from the Visual Toolkit extent to the iFrame, even if the other site isn’t an AudioEye customer.

The fact is, there’s little consistency about the best ways in which to make the visual portions of a site more usable to users with cognitive disabilities. That’s why we have harnessed years of hands-on testing and user feedback to create our Visual Toolkit.

If you’re a new AudioEye Pro or Managed customer, great news! Your end-users have access to the Visual Toolkit via the AudioEye Accessibility Toolbar. For existing AudioEye customers, the Visual Toolkit replaces the legacy Reader utility. No action is required to enable the Visual Toolkit. AudioEye is rolling out this exciting new feature for all customers over the next several months.  Just click on our “man in blue” on the lower right of your screen.  And if you want to begin your path to digital accessibility, start with AudioEye for free.