I have a relative who is losing his sight. Is there any software or hardware available that could help him to use his computer?

There are two major categories of software available for the visually impaired: screen magnifiers and screen readers.  Screen magnifiers make selected areas of the screen larger, as if the mouse pointer were a magnifying glass.  Screen reader convert written text to speech.

Both Microsoft Windows and Apple’s OS X have accessibility tools built into the operating system, including high-contrast display settings, screen magnifiers, voice-activated controls and text-to-speech functions.  But some with disabilities find these tools insufficient and would like options tuned to their specific needs.

“You have to go to third-party applications because [the built-in tools] just aren’t good enough,” says Jay Leventhal, editor of Access World (www.afb.org/accessworld), an online publication of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) that focuses on technology designed for the visually impaired.

When it comes to screen-magnifying software, the one that performed the best in AFB’s tests was ZoomText from Ai Squared ($395).  As for screen readers, Leventhal recommends either JAWS from Freedom Scientific ($1095) or Window-Eyes from GW Micro ($795).