Every Mac comes standard with a wide range of assistive technologies that help people with disabilities enjoy the power and simplicity of the Mac. We call this Universal Access, and it includes many features you won’t find in other operating systems at any price. In OS X, they’re built right in.
Vision
OS X offers a variety of built-in tools and technologies that help people with vision disabilities get the most from their Mac.
Built-in screen reading.
OS X is the first operating system to include as a standard feature an advanced screen-reading technology that makes it possible for those who are blind or have low vision to control their computer. Called VoiceOver, it describes aloud what appears on your computer screen: text in documents, windows, menus, dialogs, and more. But it’s much more than simply a text-to-speech tool. Using VoiceOver, you can control your Mac with a keyboard, a braille display, or a Multi-Touch trackpad — instead of a mouse.
Web surfing made easier.
VoiceOver makes surfing the web much easier. It can begin reading an entire web page automatically after the page loads, or it can summarize the page for you, reading only the title, number of tables, headers, links, form elements, and other items. OS X also offers a unique virtual control called a rotor. When you turn it — by rotating two fingers on your Multi-Touch trackpad — you control how VoiceOver moves through the page, such as by header, link, frame, table, or form element. And because many web pages are difficult to convey through a screen reader, Apple invented new technologies to comprehend and interpret the visual design of web pages, then use the information to assign virtual tags called “auto web spots” to mark important locations on the page.
On a newspaper website, for example, there might be an auto web spot for each lead story, another for a box containing weather or sports scores, and so on. You can jump from web spot to web spot with a keystroke or the flick of a finger.
VoiceOver voices.
The voices in VoiceOver use advanced Apple technologies to deliver natural intonation in English even at extraordinarily fast speaking rates. While most text-to-speech (TTS) systems analyze and synthesize text one sentence at a time, OS X analyzes text a paragraph at a time and deciphers the context more accurately. In addition, VoiceOver more closely matches the nuances of human speech, so you can more easily understand the meaning of longer text passages in books, articles, and news stories.
Controlling your Mac with touch and sound.
Lion lets you control VoiceOver with gestures on a Multi-Touch trackpad. The trackpad surface can represent the active window on your computer screen. So you can touch to hear the item under your finger, drag to hear items continuously as you move your finger, and flick with one finger to move to the next or previous item. For example, you can drag your finger around the trackpad to learn how items are arranged in a web page, a spreadsheet, a presentation, or any document with text.
VoiceOver activities.
With VoiceOver activities, you can create groups of preferences for specific uses. For example, you can create an activity to use a certain voice and a faster speaking rate when you’re shopping online catalogs. Create a second activity to use a different voice and a slower speaking rate when you’re reading online newspapers. You can switch activities manually or have VoiceOver switch automatically based on the applications you use.
International voices.
VoiceOver in OS X includes built-in voices that speak 22 languages: Arabic, English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French (France), German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Turkish, Cantonese, Mandarin (China), and Mandarin (Taiwan).
Screen magnification and more.
OS X allows you to magnify the screen by up to 40x with amazing quality and without affecting system performance. You can also adjust the characteristics of your display, such as switching the screen to white-on-black or black-on-white.
Braille made simple.
The Mac is the only computer that supports braille displays right out of the box, with drivers for over 40 models, including wireless Bluetooth displays. Just connect one and start using it — no additional software installation necessary. A feature called braille mirroring enables multiple braille displays to be connected to one computer simultaneously — perfect for classroom settings. And OS X Lion includes built-in support for more than 80 new braille tables covering a wide range of languages.
Hearing
OS X provides a variety of features designed to assist those who have difficulty hearing computer speech, sounds, and alerts.
Communicate with iChat.
An Internet-based text, audio, and video conferencing application, iChat is included with your Mac and lets you converse and interact with others even when you’re miles or continents apart. iChat works with AIM (the largest instant messaging community in the U.S.), Google Talk, and Jabber. With iChat, you can communicate with buddies who use either a Mac or a Windows PC.
Thanks to its high-quality video and frame rate capabilities, iChat is ideal for those who communicate using sign language and is a great way to take advantage of hands-on video relay services such as HOVRS.com. Participants can clearly see the finger and hand movements of everyone taking part in the chat. This allows you to communicate from afar with the same range of emotions you would use when you’re in the same room together.
FaceTime for Mac and iOS devices.
OS X Lion includes FaceTime so you can video chat with iOS devices and chat in HD with other Mac computers.*
Open and closed captioning.
OS X supports open and closed captioning in QuickTime Player and DVD Player. You can set these applications to display open or closed captioning with a simple two-step process. If you download captioned content from the iTunes Store, you’ll be able to play it back with captions on iPhone, iPad, iPod classic, iPod nano (4th generation or later), iPod touch, and Apple TV; in QuickTime Player (for Mac and Windows); and in iTunes (for Mac and Windows).
Alerts and audio.
To let you know that the system or an application requires your attention, you can have OS X flash the entire screen in addition to playing an audio tone as an alert. And if your hearing is limited in one ear, there’s a setting to route right- and left-channel audio into both speakers or headphones, so you can hear both channels at all times.
Physical and Motor Skills
OS X offers features that help you navigate your computer even if you have difficulties using the keyboard, mouse, and trackpad.
Simpler keyboard and mouse navigation.
Sticky Keys lets you enter key combinations — such as Command-Q (for Quit) or Shift-Option-8 (for the ° symbol) — by pressing them in sequence instead of simultaneously. Slow Keys helps you avoid typing errors and unintended multiple keystrokes. And Mouse Keys lets you control your mouse pointer using the keys on a numeric keypad instead of the mouse. If you find it easier to use a pointing device than a keyboard, you can use an onscreen keyboard to enter text instead. It floats above other applications, so you can’t lose it, and it can be displayed small or large.
Automating common tasks.
If you often perform complex, routine tasks, such as renaming files or resizing images, you can have Automator do them for you, saving you untold keystrokes and mouse clicks. You simply tell Automator which actions to perform and in which order by dragging them into a workflow, and then Automator will perform your task as often as you want. Or Automator can record your actions as you do them and save them to use later.
Customizing your input.
Because OS X supports the USB standard, you can use your favorite USB keyboard or mouse with your Mac even if it was designed for a PC. You can also connect alternative input devices that simulate standard mouse and keyboard input. And you can even customize your keyboard layout — QWERTY, Dvorak, or others — and create your own keyboard shortcuts to work exactly the way you want them to.
Read about all the accessibility features in OS X