Webaim screenreader user survey

6 Jun 2012

The annual screenreader user survey is out, at http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/

If you've not seen it before, it is definitely worth the five minutes it will take you to scan through. Its results contradict a lot of received wisdom about screenreader behaviours, and clarify some common uncertainties.

Main takeaways:

• Screenereader users love headings for navigating around a page
• 1.4% don’t have JS on, so your biggest user base without JS is going to be search bots.
• 82.7% update their software
• JAWS is still dominant, but decreasing due to uptake in NVDA (free) and VoiceOver (Mac, iOS)
• CAPTCHA is still a massive pain. Only Flash is worse for difficulty
• Quite a lot are using mobiles with screenreaders