Too much screen time? Font too small? Screen too white? If you’ve got study to do but you’re finding screen glare or tiny fonts a problem, there are lots of tools that can help.
There are loads of helpful plug-ins out there for whichever web browsers you use (this handy article compares browsers, if you’re interested). Let’s start with:
The Chrome Store offers 100s of extensions that will change the colours, sizes and help with text-to-speech.
There are a gazillion of these widgets out there, but here are a few that people have found useful in the past:
Helperbird changes fonts to Open Dyslexic font, which many people find easier on the eye
Noverlay will turn the background of your screen blue, pink, red, or even a delicate shade of indigo. Great when there is just too much white on the screen.
High Contrast alters the font and background colours to whatever suits you best.
SwiftRead may seem a little odd at first, but once you get used to it, it’s a lovely way of focusing on your reading.
Ctrl + or Ctrl – will zoom in or out on pretty much any web browser so you can see things in more detail or fit more stuff on the screen.
Read Aloud will, er, read aloud sections text on a web page.
There are literally 100s of these little widgets available for Chrome, so have a look in the Chrome store and try a few out to see which ones suit you best. All the ones listed above, and loads of others are free, so you have nothing to lose.
On iOS/ MacOS there are already lots of built options to help you make you online experience more comfortable, whether you are on a mobile device or a Mac.
Firefox user? There are a range of tools and shortcuts to make the web a better place to be.
And finally, Microsoft Edge is particularly good when used with books published in an ePub format, enabling you to navigate, re-space and zoom in on the written word more easily.
Why not take some time out this Global Accessibility Awareness Day, explore some tools, and make your study environment a more comfortable place to be? #GAAD
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