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As the title suggests, how would I tell if a user is using an assistive technology, such as the Mac screen reader or JAWS, and then record that using an analytics suite, such as Google Analytics? This Google Analytics forum didn't turn up any helpful results. Would prefer a JavaScript-based answer, although something on the backend could work, too.

This is similar to my question, but a bit dated. Is there currently practices that allow what I'm after?: Is it possible to use javascript to detect if a screen reader is running on a users machine??

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Justin McCraw
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Sorry, not really. A screenreader is a separate, standalone application. In Windows, it utilises MSAA, an API provided by the operating system.

JS combined with Flash is the closest you will get: http://webaim.org/techniques/flash/media/detect.html Flash makes use of MSAA.

However, you'll get unreported users for users without Flash and users not on Windows. Screenreader users on mobile are growing rapidly http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/

The mac screen reader is called VoiceOver and is present on MacOSX and iOS.

Dawn
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  • That's what I was afraid. Doing some tests with allowing users to do things like close modals with the escape key, and was just wondering what percentage of screen reader uses use that method to close things and such. Probably a lot, but guess I'll never know. Thanks for the answer! – Justin McCraw Aug 15 '13 at 15:40
  • fwiw, escape key closing is a handy feature for everyone (bar touch device users) regardless of vision or mobility. – Dawn Aug 16 '13 at 13:57
  • In simpler terms, and somewhat updated - No. Screen readers get their information from the browser client-side, and there's nothing communicated to the server (or Google Analytics) to indicate that a screen reader is being used. For a more comprehensive discussion: https://www.mightybytes.com/blog/how-many-users-with-disabilities-on-site/ – Andrew Mar 23 '22 at 22:31