American Sign Language (ASL)

ASL uses hand shapes, positions, facial expressions, and body movements to convey meaning to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

Braille

Braille is a tactile system of raised dots representing letters or a combination of letters. It is used by people who are blind or deafblind and is produced using Braille transcription software.

Captioning

Captioning uses subtitles to convey the words spoken in a video. They usually appear on the bottom of the screen.

Digital Accessible Information Systems (DAISY)

DAISY is an audio format for people who have trouble with print – including limited vision and learning disabilities like dyslexia. DAISY digital talking books are like audiobooks, but include navigation features to help readers skip forward or back through the material.

Screen reader software

Screen readers use a speech-synthesizer to read text from a computer screen or convert it to Braille. The information must be formatted properly (in a structured electronic file) for the screen reader to recognize it.

Structured electronic files

A structured electronic file includes information about how elements of the document are formatted, like titles, section headings, etc. They can be created using “styles” in most standard word processing programs. Documents created as structured electronic files are easier to convert to accessible formats (including Braille, DAISY and web pages) and allow screen readers to navigate the information effectively.