OS recommendations to blind people

I recently saw a video by “The blind life” (youtube link) and I found it so devoid of content or anything resembling information it inspired me to write a page that does it properly.

I’ll here focus on what I have experiences with, so mostly screen readers and similar technology. I did see options for low vision accessibility in pretty much everything I used but I can’t say anything about how good they are.

The jist of it

• Windows, Mac, IOS and android all come with a screen reader by default, although I strongly recommend installing NVDA on windows.
• Applications that come by default on these systems are usually accessible, although some are better than others and I can’t vouch for each one individually. At the very least the web browser, text editor and file explorer work, and other applications can be replaced.
• Third-party applications are a hit and miss on almost every platform, although web applications have better odds in accessibility’s favor. Windows has the most software for sure, MacOS applications are usually ok, android, unless it’s a very famous application it’s not likely to work. I can’t speak much for IOS.

If nothing I wrote above means anything to you, go with windows computer and android phone. Nobody got fired for going with windows,¹ and android phones are usually cheaper and do the basic things right.

The contestants

I’ve used MacOS, Windows and some linuxes. I used android, and IOS a long time ago. I’ll say a little about each as far as non-accessibility features are concerned, to know what to expect:

Windows

you know this one, whether you like it or not. It’s the A-list celebrity that, despite sliding step by step into irrelevance, just refuses to die. The meteor that will kill this dinosaur is still in orbit. It’s got a lot of applications still written for it, including software useful to blind people. It’s also what most of the world still uses, outside of a few sectors. MacOS / IOS

The operating systems on various apple products. Some people love them, others don’t. Apple’s garden has perhaps the tallest walls in the tech industry (don’t use if you have an android unless you aren’t ready for some headaches) and their products, even relatively older ones, are quite expensive, prohibitively so for some. For what it’s worth, I’m typing this one an external keyboard connected to a 7-year-old MacBook whose internal one doesn’t work and I can’t say I regret buying it. It’s not got as much software as windows, but it’s got a good enough ecosystem. I haven’t used IOS in a while, but most should apply there too. Android

The other operating system for non-desktop devices. While the operating system is the same each phone manufacturer adds their own things and takes out others. It’s got a wide range of applications like iPhone, some of which are exclusive. Linux

It’s gotten a fair bit of attention from the blind community recently, at least among the ones interested in things like linux. It’s not the easiest switch, but I recommend at least trying it out, if only for the experience of using another operating system. THe situation however is much more fractured than on android, which while not bad in itself makes it hard to give a consistent recommendation or critique. Anything else

There are many things I haven’t tried out, most famous of which is probably chromeos. Most “unix-like” OSes such as the BSDs should work similarly enough to linux, once you’ve gotten them running.

There are two things that also deserve a mention, even though they aren’t operating systems, but are instead more like kinds of applications that can run on most of them.

Web applications

I’m using this as a blanket term for everything that runs in a web browser, some are called “websites” others “applications” depending on what argument people are having. Given that every operating system has an accessible web browser, most well-designed web applications should also work on them. The most complex can be hit or miss depending on web browser but you can usually be pretty sure that it will work with either firefox or chrome-based browsers, and every OS you’re probably considering can run either. Terminal applications

Anything that runs in a terminal, console, command prompt, etc. Again, nearly every operating system has one of those, although some might require more configuration to make them fully accessible. Some might think they’re a relic of the past, or only for advanced and knowledgeable users, but it’s still an unmatched environment in some aspects. I might write more about it some day.

I’ll now talk about accessibility on each.

Windows

Assuming you’ve figured out where the power button is and pressed it, the first step is to turn on narrator and install another screen reader. Earlier versions of windows played a noise when they turned on, but at some point it got removed so you mostly have to guess when it’s ready, or “blindly” try one of the steps below until it works, or ask for someone to help you out.

How to turn on narrator depends on whether you’re on the log in screen or if you get logged in automatically. Here are some ways I remember working.

• Windows+u: opens “ease of access”, and on the log in screen it reads allowed the options. When you’re logged in it doesn’t speak, but pressing alt-n should open narrator. It’s a little bit different on older versions of windows but the shortcut is the same.
• Windows+r, type in “narrator” and press enter. This should work on any version and has always worked for me. except on the log in screen, where there’s no run dialog box.

After this tumbling block however Windows is pretty usable. Narrator is still quite janky but since Windows 10 it can be used full time, but I still recommend installing another screen reader. Windows’ biggest accessibility selling point is its screen readers and in particular how customizeable they are. All of them have a basic help facility, pressing insert+1 (on the number row) gets into a special mode where you can press any key or combinations of them, and get told what it would do. Pretty much all screen reader commands use the insert key, or capslock if they were so configured.

Windows accessibility is hit and miss. While usually it works well, it often happens that microsoft decides to make a new thing for applications and break third-party screen readers in the process (although it gets fixed fast enough). The accessibility of their programs also leaves a lot to be desired, and screen readers often have to work hard making them work. Third party applications are somewhat better, although there are always misses especially on the microsoft store.

Chrome and firefox are available, along with their various forks. which includes microsoft edge.

It’s probably the safest bet if you aren’t familiar with any other operating system. And it has the most blind people using it so there is already a lot of add-ons and programs to make using it easier.

MacOS

All apple systems have a screen reader called “Voice over” that can be turned on at any time by pressing cmd+f5 where cmd is the key next to the space on the left. You can get a quick start guide by pressing ctrl+option+cmd+f8, so all three keys next to the space bar and then f8.

The system itself is pretty much completely accessible, although voice over doesn’t interact well with the default terminal application. I recommend using tdsr if you want to use the terminal applications a lot. Third party applications depends a lot on how they’re made. Most applications I ended up installing were quite usable, which isn’t that much.

For web browsers, there’s safari, and various google forks work quite well. I had trouble trying out firefox however. One thing to note when using chromium-based browsers is that arrow keys don’t let you move through the text like usually, not until you press f7 to get into karet browsing.

It’s biggest accessibility drawback is its screen reader, and the software available for blind people in general. Voice over has got a weird keymap that even I, who have used it for years now, struggle to remember sometimes. It’s also not very extendable, at least not without learning applescript, which, like with anything that starts with “apple”, has little to no documentation and not many people know in the first place. This makes adding new features to voice over, something very common with windows screen readers, an extreme rarity with voice over.

It was a while since I used IOS, so I can’t say much about it. It has braille screen input at least, which is much better than the normal touch keyboard, if it works. I do remember less applications being accessible however.

Android