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You are here: Home / Web Accessibility / Screen Readers & Browsers! Which is the Best Combination for Accessibility Testing?

Screen Readers & Browsers! Which is the Best Combination for Accessibility Testing?

Last Modified: May 12, 2018 by Raghavendra Satish Peri 22 Comments

Whenever I say that I make web & mobile Apps accessible for the disability groups, the first question some of the educated developers who understand accessibility ask me is, what browsers you test your APP’s on & which screen readers do you use? This is a very interesting question because, there are a wide variety of browsers & screen readers that are available in the market. Testing with every screen reader on every browser is not feasible if not impossible.

Popular Browsers

  • Internet Explorer (Windows OS)
  • Firefox (Windows OS and Android)
  • Chrome (Windows OS and Android)
  • Safari (OSx and IOS)

Popular Screen Readers

  • JAWS (Job Access with Speech)
  • NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access)
  • Voiceover (OSx and IOS)
  • Talkback (Android)

According to Wikipedia, chrome holds the majority share for the browser market followed by Safari. These stats are true for both desktop & mobile. But according to WebAIM screen reader survey7 conducted in 2017, Firefox stands first followed by internet Explorer & in 3rd place is Chrome. Definitely assistive technology users prefer Firefox over Chrome for their day to day activities. When it comes to IOS & OSx Safari is the most popular browser & on Android Chrome & Firefox both hold a good position.

When using your primary screen reader, which browser do you use most often?
Browser # of Respondents % of Respondents
Firefox 719 41.0%
Internet Explorer 11 408 23.3%
Chrome 271 15.5%
Safari 184 10.5%
Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 71 4.1%
Internet Explorer 9 or 10 70 4.0%
Microsoft Edge 8 0.5%
Other 22 1.3%

According to WebAIM Screen reader survey we can clearly see from the below table that JAWS works great on Internet Explorer followed by NVDA with Firefox. I personally prefer JAWS with Internet Explorer & JAWS with Chrome as the new version of Firefox doesn’t work with JAWS yet. During my day to day accessibility testing I use NVDA with Firefox & sometimes I also use NVDA with Chrome to see if any ARIA or HTML5 attribute is not being supported by the browser or the screen reader.

Most common screen reader and browser combinations
Screen Reader & Browser # of Respondents % of Respondents
JAWS with Internet Explorer 424 24.7%
NVDA with Firefox 405 23.6%
JAWS with Firefox 260 15.1%
VoiceOver with Safari 172 10.0%
JAWS with Chrome 112 6.5%
NVDA with Chrome 102 5.9%
NVDA with IE 40 2.3%
VoiceOver with Chrome 24 1.4%
Other combinations 180 10.5%

At my work place we follow testing on Firefox with NVDA screen reader & if we encounter any bugs related to either screen reader or the browser, we immediately raise the bugs with the vendor. Even according to NVAccess, creators of NVDA the best browser that NVDA supports is Firefox.

Besides, there are other factors too that attribute to the AT testing conundrum. Firstly, the support for HTML attributes and ARIA attributes by the browser vendors vary a lot. The same is true when we talk of the screen readers too. Not every attribute is supported by all the screen readers.
Secondly, testing with all browsers VS screen readers is a costly affair as it consumes a lot of resources, time and money too.

So let’s answer the question, which screen reader should I use for accessibility testing? In my opinion & my experience, this is the matrix that I have come up with and now for your view:

  • Voiceover with Safari on IOS & OSx
  • Talkback with Chrome on Android
  • NVDA with Firefox on Windows

If you have written a clean code that is semantic & follows all W3C Standards then testing on these platforms will suffice. Most of the HTML5 & WAI-ARIA attributes are supported on all these platforms. If something doesn’t work, then cross testing on a different browser/platform can determine if it is a browser or screen reader bug.

Hope this is helpful! Any views & opinions can be shared in comments section.

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Filed Under: Web Accessibility Tagged With: Browsers, Screen Readers, WebAIM

About Raghavendra Satish Peri

Raghavendra Satish Peri is a digital accessibility evangelist working at Deque Systems as Senior Accessibility Consultant breaking web accessibility & mobile accessibility challenges. He authors an Accessibility Blog & is galvanizing the adoption of accessibility by inspiring the local tech community with meetups and mentorship. He propelled this thought by founding HelloA11y, a community of accessibility professionals, developers and enthusiasts. When away from his computer, Raghava can be found at local cafes & restaurants sampling cuisines, attending local meetups, listening to audio books or writing on his Personal Blog. Raghavendra Satish Peri also helps small business & individuals with Digital Marketing Trainings & SEO consulting… He has been building websites & doing SEO Consulting for more than 14years.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Randy says

    April 14, 2019 at 9:37 am

    Jaws is used by approx. half of all blind people, so why would you leave it out completely?

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      April 14, 2019 at 9:47 am

      Hi Randy,
      If you read the article I haven’t left out JAWS completely… I gave my opinion that JAWS works with internet explorer & chrome browser’s nicely…. I know that a lot of blind people in English speaking countries use JAWS but blind people who cannot buy JAWS license use NVDA.

      Reply
  2. Anu says

    August 2, 2019 at 10:01 pm

    Hi, Thanks for the detailed statistics. Which browser/screen reader combination is the best has been a topic for debate among several Accessibility experts. @ my workplace we only accommodate JAWS for our accessibility testing. But should we continue to test it with IE 11 or switch to chrome or firefox has been very perplexing. If you were to accommodate only one browser with your testing efforts with JAWS which browser would you recommend? IE 11 or chrome or firefox? Thanks much

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      August 5, 2019 at 9:49 pm

      Hello Anu,
      I would go with JAWS+Chrome. Even the makers of JAWS screen reader say that it works well with Chrome…. Since web is evolving & IE is not being updated regularly it might not support complex widgets built with WAI-ARIA. I personally use JAWS+Chrome & I have no issues with it. At my work place for testing we use NVDA+Firefox & it also provides reliable testing results.

      I think this post needs bit of updating & will do it once WebAIM 8th screen reader survey comes out.

      Reply
  3. Randy says

    August 7, 2019 at 1:07 am

    Using Jaws 2019 and Chrome this page wont let me reply to a comment. It ignores any form of mouse click on the reply to comment link.

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      September 10, 2019 at 8:14 pm

      Hello Randy,
      I tested the website with multiple screen readers & browsers… I am able to reply & post comments without problems.

      Reply
  4. Ranjita says

    September 10, 2019 at 10:25 am

    Hi Ragh,

    I am working in a Australia based company. In my company we are using Jaws 2019 +IE 11 for web accessibility. But now we found that Chrome is most used as compare to IE.

    So is it useful to start accessibility testing in Chrome and leave IE browser completely?

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      September 10, 2019 at 8:11 pm

      Hello Ranjita,
      Yes JAWS+Chrome will be a good combination. I would suggest you go with NVDA+Chrome or NVDA+Firefox for more accurate results. Sometimes JAWS gives false positives & if you are not a power user you might not spot these issues.

      Reply
  5. Sujatha says

    September 23, 2019 at 6:15 am

    HI Peri

    As you know the Federal government has IE 11. How well does it support ARIA and what
    are the primary browsers we should test for public facing .gov websites.
    IE and Jaws
    Chrome and NVDA?

    Also many blind users have told me sometimes ARIA can be over kill and redundant.
    What are your thoughts on it?

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      September 25, 2019 at 5:50 am

      Hello sujatha,

      It’s time IE retires or upgrades like other browsers. Yes it’s true that all ARIA widgets doesn’t work as expected with IE….. I would suggest NVDA+FF, NVDA+Chrome & if you are using JAWS then JAWS+Chrome

      Yes ARIA is an over kill if you ask… use native HTML first & for dynamic widgets use WAI-ARIA.

      Reply
  6. Kritika Sharma says

    January 10, 2020 at 10:46 am

    Hi Peri,

    Is NVDA a correct screen reader to be used with IE11? I’m facing issues with error identification with form fields when I use NVDA+IE11.

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      January 10, 2020 at 11:02 am

      Hello Kritika,
      NVDA+IE are not a great combination to get accurate results. If you are writing the code according to specification & screen reader is not giving the right output then it’s a useragent bug… I suggest use NVDA+FF to get accurate results. Just relying on screen reader testing results is not enough, one needs to learn to inspect code & see what’s wrong.

      Reply
  7. Kritika Sharma says

    January 10, 2020 at 11:37 am

    Thanks for your reply, Peri.

    NVDA+FF is giving expected results and I have followed WCAG documentation to fix the issues I’m facing.

    Thanks again for your time.

    Reply
  8. Gary says

    January 15, 2020 at 10:34 pm

    While incredibly useful, does this article include all assistive technology that’s likely to be used or does it, however unintentionally, give the false impression that only blind and partially sighted persons need to be taken into account? what about those who are dexterity impaired and user speech recognition programs (such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking)? just because a website or software application works with ScreenReaders, there is no knowledge or indication that it will work for other disabilities or assistive technology.

    I find this limited view very dangerous and, while better than before, still all too common – i.e., “if it works with JAWS, it’ll work with Dragon” – which I’ve heard from webmasters and accessibility ‘managers’ all too often.

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      February 14, 2020 at 7:17 am

      Hello Garry,
      I am a person with visual disability & also an A11Y specialist… so with this experience I can say that a site built with right code works across all assistive technologies. HTML comes accessible by default, it’s just need support from user-agents & assistive technologies… if we are building any custom controls using ARIA then right set of roles, states & properties need to be implemented. While all this is done to perfection from the code end, all these widgets work with assistive technologies like dragon naturally speaking.

      Dragon naturally speaking relies on elements name & role most of the time… you can command it to open button, click link or tell the name of the element where it moves the focus. So I think testing with screen readers is the cost effective way to perform accessibility testing as it gives most of the A11Y bugs & from there we can work on fixes.

      Reply
  9. Aruna says

    July 3, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    Hi,

    I am a accessibility tester but confused every time which combination i preferred. In one of my project JAWS+FF combination required but during testing i found that it’s not working well. On few interactive element it’s not giving response and even navigation issue occur using arrow keys.
    Can you help me out what will be the best combination in terms of priority? As i got different results on different website. Can give me the exact answer.

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      July 6, 2020 at 7:11 am

      Hi Aruna,
      Use JAWS+Chrome & NVDA+FF combination. Internet explorer is not being supported by lot of websites lately & its waste to test on it. A lot of ARIA widgets also do not work as expected on IE.

      Reply
  10. KRR says

    December 9, 2020 at 6:32 am

    I’ve long been testing our web app in JAWS+IE and NVDA+FF but lately as we upgrade our application IE has been a continuing trouble spot–and not just with a screen reader in play. The new Edge seems to be working well with JAWS (it is based on chromium so not surprising), I’m trying to figure out if it is still worth trying to get the application working in IE with Jaws or if we should let our clients know we don’t support IE with screen readers and there may be issues (our clients are companies that embed our web app in their websites, their end users would be the end users using screen readers).

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      January 2, 2021 at 7:49 am

      ARIA widgets do not work consistently in IE & the browser is almost dead…. I am asking people to use Chrome & FF for both testing & using the rich web applications.

      Reply
      • Randy says

        January 2, 2021 at 11:24 am

        I am active in many blind lists and FF is not use very much anymore. Most use Chrome, Edge and other Chromium based browsers.

        Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Our Take Away from WebAIM’s Web Accessibility Practitioners Survey #2 Results • Digital A11y says:
    June 10, 2018 at 5:11 pm

    […] When it comes to testing with screen readers, NVDA, VoiceOver and JAWS hold the respective ranks. But practitioners with disabilities still prefer JAWS over NVDA and VoiceOver despite the popularity of JAWS decreasing or the popularity of NVDA and VoiceOver increasing among them. To know more about browsers and screen readers combination, read our post […]

    Reply
  2. How & Where to report accessibility bugs • Digital A11y says:
    August 2, 2019 at 5:01 am

    […] it show happens that a particular widget or code that is suggested might not work as expected in a Screen Reader & Browser Combination. There is no guarantee that what works with NVDA+Firefox, JAWS+Chrome & VoiceOver+Safari will […]

    Reply

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