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Re: Testing with default or adjusted screen reader settings

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From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 11, 2021 1:37AM

It depends on your objective. If you are doing a WCAG audit, there is no requirement to test with screen readers at all. If you are doing an "accessibility audit" or "expert review", you can do any tests you want. In that case, it would make sense to test with the default settings because a lot of people don't adjust them until they become proficient, and maybe not even then.

If you're going to change the default settings, you ought to talk to screen reader users and find out what sort of changes they make and for what types of content. There are a lot of settings, some of which may make your website difficult or impossible to use. It might be interesting to know that that can happen, but you have no obligation to fix it.

My view is that it would be more productive to spend that time testing with a wider range of screen readers and other assistive technologies.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd