The Amazon Kindle, which has been for years the cautionary tale of inaccessible tech, made two notable announcements in the last week.
On March 2nd PR Newswire posted, “National Federation of the Blind and Amazon Join Forces to Improve Accessible Reading Experiences for Blind and Low-Vision Students.” These two organizations have been at odds for a while. Now that they are on the same side, Kindle may be the new tech to watch for accessibility.
Today, less than one week later, the Kindle app for IOS has updated with several accessibility related features including:
- Immersion reading – A reading experience where your Kindle book will highlight each word as the Audible version of the book is played.
- OpenDyslexic font – A font optimized to assist people who have decoding challenges often associated with Dyslexia.
It looks like the Amazon Kindle team has changed tack and is joining Apple and other tech companies in building more inclusive technology.