One of the biggest misconceptions about accessibility is that it requires expensive, cumbersome, and hard-to-find equipment. In reality, the tools for accommodation may already be in your pocket. Case in point: OCRs, or optical character recognition apps, which can be downloaded to any smartphone.
OCR detects text that is not digital, like printed text, and converts it to a digital format. Once the text is digital, it can be used in several ways. One way OCR is commonly used today is text-to-speech output, meaning that once the text is captured in a digital format, a synthesized voice can speak it aloud. In the case of some smartphone apps, this means individuals — whether they are blind or have low vision, have dyslexia, have cognitive disabilities that make reading more difficult, or for whatever reason benefit from hearing text read aloud — can take with them a portable, digital reader of text that’s in the physical world. Some of these apps even double as translator apps, helping travelers or non-native language speakers bridge the communication gap in new surroundings.
These pocket-sized OCRs essentially work the same as bulkier devices or larger-camera systems: by looking for, recognizing, and processing text. But because they use a smartphone camera, there isn’t anything extra to carry in order to read signs, handouts, menus, and mail.
Although some are better than others, no OCR app can guarantee 100 percent accuracy. The most common impediments to precision are image quality (a low-light image of a menu in a dark restaurant, for example) and font selection. Most OCR apps can more-accurately recognize traditional fonts with separated letter shapes; unusual fonts, cursive scripts, or calligraphy may not be recognized (although some newer OCR technology is getting better at reading handwriting and other less-standard styles). Some are also limited to documents with a traditional paragraph layout and may falter when encountering tables, charts spreadsheets, or footnotes.
It’s inexpensive or even free to get started, so first-time users can easily sample some basic features and narrow their requirements to choose the best apps for them (or for different scenarios).