Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers across the world. Google Chrome offers a lot of features and accessibility is one of them. Accessibility can be defined as a means to help a person with a disability by using assistive technology, it can be a device, a feature, environment or service.
Well, if you or your family members are not able to read text on a website, unable to see certain colors, or have dyslexia, Google Chrome has come up with accessibility features that you help.
In this post, we will talk about the accessibility extensions that Google has to offer and how to find them.
How To Find and Add an Accessibility Extension?
When you visit the Chrome Web store, you can go to Categories and click category named Accessibility, wherein developers have added extensions to help people with disabilities.
You can go through the list of extensions and add it Chrome. To add, click on the extension and on the next page, click Add to Chrome. You will get a prompt asking to add an extension. Click on it to Add.
Besides other developers, Google has also added a few accessibility extensions to help people with disabilities.
Color Enhancer:
Adjust your webpages Colors meaning you can eliminate certain color in webpages which can be recognized by you. It is a customizable filter which helps you to enhance the color on a website to improve color perception. This usually helps a person with color blindness.
How to use the extension?
To enable the extension, locate and click Color Enhancer ->Setup.
Select the row of Color combinations which is creating confusion. (Select the row with the faintest stars.
Now, move the slider to change color correction level. Choose a setting where you adjust the slider until all of the stars are visible in the selected row.
Click OK to save the changes.
Caret Browsing
Caret Browsing is an extension which helps you to move around a webpage using a keyboard rather than a mouse or touchpad. You can click links, select and move through the text, along with basic page controls.
To enable the extension, locate Caret Browsing from the right side of the address bar.
Note: in case you Chromebook, you press Search and Brightness keys together to enable or disable the extension.
How to use the extension:
- Move word to word: Press Ctrl and Arrow keys together
- Select text: press Shift and Arrow key
- Move between Focus able control: press Tab.
- Press F7: enable the extension
High Contrast
Change or invert the color scheme to make the webpage comprehend to read. The extension can help you adjust color contrast, remove all the colors, and flip black and white. You can modify your settings by a website.
How to use the extension?
Click High Contrast and enable the extension from the right side of the address bar.
To adjust text and images on the website, click High Contrast.
Under the Preferred Color scheme, select Normal, Increased Contrast, Inverted Color, Inverted Grayscale.
You can select the settings for all websites or only for the current website.
Long Descriptions In Context Menu
Long Descriptions In Context Menu extension allows you to click on any long description and access it. Add an item to the context menu and right-click an element on a page and access its long description.
This extension utilizes longdesc” and “aria-describedat” attributes in HTML, also used in assistive technology.
How to use the extension?
You need to right click on any element on the page and go to its long description
It allows you to add a color border to differentiate images with a long description
Locate Long Descriptions beside Address bar and click On it.
From the drop-down, select Options.
Now put a checkmark beside “Add border to elements with aria-describedat or longdesc attributes,” and close Options window.
The changes will be saved automatically.
Image Alt Text Viewer
Image Alt Text VIewer extension can help you view alt text for images on a webpage and locate images which don’t have alt text. The extension will show you alt text in place of images. If there is no alt text present for the images, you can see images highlighted in red color.
How To Use The Extension:
To enable Image Alt Text Viewer, locate and click it from the right side of the address bar.
To disable the extension, click Undo from the upper corner of the page.
So, these are the accessibility extensions provided by Google which enables you to get accessibility features On Google Chrome. Try them and let us know if they work for you. Also, If you think there are other accessibility extensions for Chrome which could be useful, please mention them in the comments below.