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Kindle Fire tablet accessibility features
Mark Peters : December 24th 2012 - 12:15 CET
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 Amazon Kindle Fire HD tablet accessibility features : For years features such as text-to-speech and adjustable font sizes have helped Kindle tablet owners enjoy books more easily and those with learning disabilities to improve their overall reading skills. Now, Amazon has announced 'Voice Guide' and 'Explore by Touch' - two new accessibility features previously available on Kindle Fire HD 8.9” tablet to its new standard definition Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD 7” tablets. These accessibility features help vision-impaired customers to more easily navigate the menus and content on the tablet, enjoy books and audio books, and listen to music tracks.
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Kindle Fire accessibility features
These tablet features have been available with Kindle Fire HD 8.9” since its release and will be made available on the standard definition Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD 7” early 2013. Voice Guide leverages technology from IVONA, one of the leading text-to-speech software engine companies. IVONA delivers high quality pronunciations to read aloud menus with Voice Guide and books with text-to-speech for Kindle Fire tablets.
Voice Guide navigation for Kindle tablets
With Voice Guide navigation, any action performed by the user on the tablet is read aloud. For example, when a book is launched from the library, the innovative system will announce the book title and the fact that it has been opened, saying "The President Secrets. Book opened." This mode also provides immediate feedback to visually-impaired individuals for their actions on the tablet. Additionally, vision-impaired users can navigate the touchscreen with Explore by Touch functionality. In this mode, Kindle Fire tablet users are able to swipe their finger across the touchscreen and as they touch an item, the system announces what item has been tapped. A second tap on the item will perform the default action on the item.
Other Kindle reader features
Other Kindle reader features vision-impaired users and those with learning disabilities can take advantage of on the all new Kindle Fire tablets include; Text-to-speech - simultaneously reading along with the synchronized text. Adjustable fonts - users can select from multiple font settings, including large font sizes for low vision, and adjust margins to allow for less text to appear on a page. Modify the text color to appear as white over black, black over white or sepia and built-in dictionary for instant access to look up new or difficult words.
Kindle accessibility plugin
Vision-impaired users can take advantage of the free Kindle for Personal Computer with accessibility plugin reading application, which provides an accessible way to enjoy the vast Kindle library on any PC. The application features voice-guided menu navigation, large font sizes, high contrast reading mode, keyboard navigation and accessible shortcuts, as well as text-to-speech reading with adjustable voice settings for customers who have an external screen reader program installed on their computer. |
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