Accessibility and assistive technology

Immersive Reader

What is the Immersive Reader?
The immersive reader is a tool created by Microsoft to assist users read digital content. Although it is of most use in assisting people with vision problems or reading difficulties such as dyslexia, the Immersive Reader can make content more accessible to all. It is also very useful for those of us who are getting older and have deteriorating eyesight.

Availability

• MS Word, OneNote and Outlook
• Native in the Microsoft Edge browser (packaged with Windows and available for Mac OS).
• Available as a Chrome Extension – click here to install
• Comes with the Helperbird app (and works with the D2L Brightspace platform).

Performance
Using the Immersive Reader in Edge is only sometimes preferable to the Chrome Immersive Reader extension. For example the Edge version of the reader works very poorly with D2L Brightspace while the Chrome extension is much better.

• The text-to-speech feature of the Immersive Reader can be helpful with web users with reading difficulties (or simply with tired eyes. It could also be useful for users learning a second language who want to improve their pronunciation. Although the speech it produces sounds much more natural than many other similar programs, it is not entirely natural at producing spoken English, partly because of the fact that English is a stress-timed language. Generally words which have strong and weak forms are produced in the weak form, meaning that they are pronounced correctly most of the time. Furthermore, the reader recognises words in context, so words such as record and progress, which have noun and verb forms which are pronounced differently, are correctly produced by the reader.
• The Immersive Reader can display text in a larger font and convert page fonts into a san-serif font which is easier for people with dyslexia or speakers of English as a second language.
• It can also increase the line spacing which benefits all readers, and especially those with dyslexia or eye tracking disorder.
• There is an option to increase inter-letter and inter-word spacing, which is helpful for readers with dyslexia and can also assist other readers.
• ‘Text column style’ (under ‘Text Preferences’) offers narrow, medium and wide columns. Narrow columns are beneficial to readers (Schneps et al., 2013), especially those with dyslexia or eye tracking disorder, because we are less likely to lose our place when our eyes need to instantly track back from the far right of the screen to the far left.
• The option to choose different backgrounds can reduce glare and therefore reduce eyestrain. Dark mode can also reduce the amount of blue light we are exposed to. Blue light has been proven to suppress the production of melatonin, and thereby cause insomnia.
• The line focus feature shows a limited number of lines at once (one, three or five lines), with the rest of the text faded in the background. This can reduce the crowding effect of a page of text and is beneficial for readers with dyslexia or eye tracking disorder.
• The translate feature has options to translate single words on click or the whole document. Translations of single words, as you would guess if you have a background in languages, are unreliable as words usually have many different meanings depending on context. However, although I am an experienced accredited translator and tend to be very sceptical of the ability of software to translate reliably, I must admit that the translation of English to Spanish is quite impressive. I’m told that the translation to Chinese is also quite good. However, I would recommend to students that they use this tool wisely and sparingly; if they rely on it too much to understand course content, they may find that they are not acquiring the professional vocabulary of their discipline that they will need to know in exams and in the workplace.
• The picture dictionary may be useful, especially for children or low-level learners of a language.
• The ‘Parts-of-speech’ feature shows whether a word is a noun, verb, adjective or adverb and may be useful to language learners.
• The syl-la-bles feature displays words divided into syllables and may be helpful for language learners to improve their pronunciation. However, I have found it to be less than 100% accurate, and does not show the actual pronunciation of syllables. This means that its usefulness is reduced when displaying stress timed languages such as English.