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Desktop screen readers

Desktop screen readers are rather complex to understand and control, as they offer many features and ways to interact with websites. Compared to mobile screen readers, they deliver a both broader and more detailed picture on the robustness of a website, revealing most potential accessibility issues. As such, they are indispensable testing tools.

There are various screen readers available on all major desktop operating systems, but only two of them are relevant for testing accessibility: NVDA and JAWS (both running on Windows). The following section assumes that they are installed and configured properly. So if you haven't done this yet, go back and read: