US Software Helps Visually Impaired See Web Sites

US Software Helps Visually Impaired See Web Sites

Lighthouse International says its program is the first of its kind to allow people with severe sight issues to view web pages as designer’s intended. A charitable organisation Lighthouse who work with people with visual impairments has developed a software tool that is an add-on to browsers.
LowBrowse allows users to see text within websites altered to meet their needs. LowBrowse works with Mozilla, IE and Mac and will be realised as a Firefox add-on by September 2008.

Lighthouse said the program is simple enough for novices to use with very little or no IT support needed. It can be downloaded onto a flash drive in seconds and carried to any pc used.

"This technology enables all the text on a web site to be presented in the same readable fomat -- size, color, font and spacing -- regardless of which page is being viewed and without having to navigate to the next line," said Aries Arditi, senior fellow in Vision Science at Lighthouse International.