How Screen Readers Navigate Web Pages

• Screen readers use HTML code to identify page content.
• Uniform Record Locators (URL) are identified as links by assistive technology.
• Users can press the tab key on their keyboard to navigate digital content and find links.
  
  • There are many other hotkeys that assistive technology offer to users, but tab is the default key for basic navigation.
• URL are one of many objects that the tab key can find.
• Plain text is not found by the tab key and requires more thorough inspection of the page to discover.
• Screen reader technology can also create a list of all links in a single webpage, so that a user can quickly find and activate a link.
  • If the link text populated in this window is not clear, then the user must investigate the linked webpage to determine the purpose of the link.
    • This puts the blind user at a disadvantage compared to sighted users who can more quickly ascertain the purpose of the ambiguous link and its context.