What is Helperbird?
Helperbird is a free browser extension with a subscription version with added features. This app changes the way webpages are presented to viewers. While it was designed to assist people with reading disabilities such as dyslexia, it can be useful to us all, as many webpages do not present texts in a user friendly way. In addition to giving users control over increased line spacing, letter spacing and inter-word spacing, Helperbird gives users control over other text features such as colour contrast and link colour. Furthermore, as people age and their eyesight deteriorates, they may struggle to view and interact with online content. Helperbird can assist by increasing text size and spacings and gives the user access to the Immersive Reader in pages where the Immersive Reader would not be otherwise available.
Which browsers have an extension for Helperbird?
The Helperbird extension is available for the Chrome, Chrome for Mac iOS, Edge, Edge for Mac iOS, Mozilla Firefox and Safari browsers. Search for the extension in your browser extension store or do a search such as “Helperbird Chrome extension”.
How is Helperbird useful?
I recommend Helperbird for the following reasons:
- Users can save their settings so that most webpages will load in the desired format when the Helperbird extension is set to On.
- Users can select the font they want, including the OpenDyslexic font.
- Inter-letter and inter-word spacing of text can be adjusted to make reading easier. Whilst this is intended to help people with dyslexia, it can also make texts more readable for all.
- The app works in Learning Management Systems such as Moodle and Brightspace.
- The Immersive Reader is available via the Helperbird extension, even in Google Docs and pdf as well as in Brightspace and Moodle. The Immersive Reader is not available in many webpages, but Helperbird can often make it available.
- The Immersive Reader allows columns to be made narrower, which is helpful to many readers, especially readers who have the eye tracking disorder.
- Webpages are displayed in a more readable format.
- The account comes with an online pdf reader, which allows pdfs to be displayed in a readable format.
- The subscription version of Helperbird comes with many more features, such as enabling the user to write annotations on webpages and pdfs. These annotations can be saved and be seen as long as Helperbird is switched on.
Can I easily turn the extension On/Off?
Yes, you can pin the extension to the top bar of your browser where you’ll easily be able to toggle it On/Off or adjust the settings by scrolling the box down. See the image below:
Should I buy a Helperbird subscription?
That’s entirely up to you and your needs. If you really struggle reading and interacting with online content, then I would highly recommend a subscription, as the paid version has many useful features which are not available in the free version. The most useful of these is the ability to add annotations and sticky notes to webpages and save them so that you will see your notes every time you visit that page or view that pdf. Two other useful paid features are ‘Extract Text’ (optical character recognition of text in images) and word prediction. Nevertheless, you may just prefer to try the free version first to see if it meets all your needs, as the free version is still quite useful.