Chrome accessibility: what it offers us and what options we have

The accessibility it’s a very interesting part of Google Chrome to help people who may have some kind of problem, for example, with colors or who need subtitles. We have several options at our disposal, as well as elements that we can add.

Chrome allows several options to the user who needs some kind of accessibility help, but not only does it stay there, but it is also capable of granting official extensions to be able to maximize all this topic and get to enhance this topic much more.

What is accessibility looking for?

All accessibility is designed to be able to help people with certain difficulties so that they can surf the Internet with the same ease and ease as the rest, adapting certain parameters to achieve this goal.

It is intended that everyone be able to understand, navigate and interact with the network, without being affected by some kind of limitation. For this, Google has created the necessary tools to minimize all the problems that these people may have with a normal browser.

Chrome makes its options and extensions to ensure that they do not suffer any difficulty when using this software, although the web pages themselves are something else. Many of them are not prepared and have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for people with a problem to use them.

What accessibility options do we have?

Within the Chrome browser we have several options that will mitigate many of the difficulties that certain users may present.

• All these options are found in the menu Setting which we can access if we click on the three vertical points from the top right of Google.
• Once we have entered this menu we must go down with the mouse to the end of the whole where we will see what it says Advanced configuration.
• Once this drop-down is open, we have to look for the section of Accessibility where there are several options that can be of great help.

Automatic subtitles

If we activate this option we will get the subtitles to be activated automatically, for all types of audio and video content in English. Everything that is translated will remain on the device where you have Chrome and when you leave it is not preserved, all to protect privacy.

Just below this option we can see another called Subtitle preferences, where we can customize everything related to them in the best way that we can think of. If we enter here we will see several alternatives that Windows 10 itself presents us with compatible with Chrome.

• Change legend font: in this case, through different drop-downs we will be able to change the color of the subtitles (black, white, red, green and a few more), the transparency, the style, the size and the effects of these, such as the highlighting, parallel or uniform shadow among others.
• Change legend background: we can put a text background and thus improve the contrast to make the text easier to read, choosing said color and background transparency.
• Dim content: we will also be able to attenuate what is the content of a window to make it read better, changing the color and transparency of said window.

Briefly highlight the selected object

If we activate this option we will achieve that each time let’s mark some kind of element In Google Chrome it is marked, it stays marked for a few seconds to indicate that it is that part that we have pressed and not another. It does so thanks to a square in black intense that places around what we mark.

Scroll through pages with a text cursor

In this way we can activate or deactivate the cursor navigation in text

, something that can be interesting to have in certain situations. In addition to here, it can also be started or removed by pressing the F7 key. The fact of being able to scroll through web pages with the keyboard and not with the mouse can be of great help for some type of person.

Add more accessibility features

Chrome offers us new official accessibility options as extensions, to make the integration in this sense of the browser even better. These extensions are:

Text cursor navigation

It is an extension that improves even more what is the option that Chrome has in Accessibility. We will can explore any web with the arrow keys, being able to move through documents and even specific words. When we get to a link it automatically focuses to be able to enter it.

To install it you just have to enter the extension’s website and click on Add to Chrome. For it to be activated we only have to press on the carrot (it will turn yellow) that appears in the list of extensions (top right)

Color enhancer

With this extension we can adjust the web page color to be able to see them in the best of ways, being able, for example, to remove those colors that are difficult for us to perceive.

To add this extension we must enter your web and click on Add to Chrome. Now to activate it we must do the following:

• We click on Color enhancer to the right of the address bar (top).
• Now click on Set up.
• We select the row of color combinations that is most difficult for us to distinguish.
• We use the slider to correct the color. We must choose the level where we see a greater number of stars and the colors are less distorted.
• When we have finished we just have to click on To accept.

High contrast

This extension makes it easier to read text and appreciate details in images. Thanks to its filters we can adjust the color contrast, swap black and white or remove all colors. You can also customize the settings for each page that we want.

Once we have it installed the extension In Chrome in the same way as in the previous cases, it is time to activate it as follows:

• We click on High contrast on the icon to the right of the address bar.
• To adjust the images and text on the page, click High Contrast and then click Color scheme for [web], selecting what we want to use.
• To deactivate the extension, go back to High Contrast and then click on Disable.

Long descriptions in the context menu

This is an accessibility extension that allows us add an item to the context menu. We can then right-click on any item on the page to see its long description.

We must install the extension as we have seen so far and to use it follow these steps:

• We right click on any element on the page and we will see how the page opens description.
• We can also add a colored border to identify images that have a long description.
  • To the right of the address bar, we must click on Long descriptions, to then click on Settings.
  • We mark the box Add border to elements with aria-describedat or longdesc attributes«. This will automatically save the change.

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