Results from the WebAIM screen reader survey

A few weeks ago I mentioned a screen reader user survey that was being conducted by WebAIM. The survey is now closed and a first look at the results is presented in Survey of Preferences of Screen Readers Users.

Most of the results are more or less in line with what I would have expected. The result that surprised me the most is that the majority (74.6 %) of the respondents upgrade their screen readers to the newest version within a year after it has been released.

It surprised me because it is often said that screen reader users are very slow to upgrade, but apparently most of those who participated in the survey upgrade quite quickly. Obviously this could be because the participants are self-selected and don’t represent screen reader users in general when it comes to upgrading. That’s also a reason to not use these numbers as the absolute truth, but as valuable guidance.

There is a discussion of the survey and the results in Screen Reader Survey Results on the WebAIM blog.

Posted on February 10, 2009 in Accessibility