It makes a lot of sense for a person with a visual impairment to stick with large devices with large screens. However, that is not necessarily the right move. It might afford a person with low vision fewer advantages than you might think.

There are quite a few large screen devices from which to choose, including the following:

• iPhone Plus/Pro Max
• iPad 13″ Air/Pro
• MacBook Pro 16″
• All of the PC/Android equivalents

The upside is that these devices have large screens and large batteries. They also have great speakers which can be important for the person who uses a spoken interface. The big batteries ensure a long runtime and will cover the extra power needed for all those accessibility features. There is a lot to love about the big devices.

The downside is that these are big devices, maybe a little too big. It is difficult to use the largest iPhones with one hand. Large iPads need to be used on a stand or expensive keyboard cases. And the 16″ Mac is not only big, but heavy. You can really feel it on your back when you schlep it about. Additionally, you will have to pay a premium for the larger devices. The negatives quickly stack up.

Low vision can be a demanding disability. above all else, you have to be able to see what you’re doing. This is exactly why we tend to gravitate toward the bigger units. But what if you didn’t have to do that? What if you could live your best tech life with smaller, more mainstream devices? The good news is that you most likely can. Here are some things that will help you downsize your tech:

Zoom and Hover Text

For the remainder of this writing, I will be focusing on the Mac.

It might not seem like it but there is a big difference between a 13″ display and a 16″ display. It is not subtle. It is obvious, immediate, and in your face. That said, the 13″ screen has a lot going for it. And what it lacks in size, it makes up in accessibility features.

All Macs are equipped with a large accessibility suite. The first two you should activate are Zoom and Hover Text. Here is a brief description of the two:

Zoom: This is a feature that allows you to magnify what is onscreen in a variety of ways. You can leave this feature on or activate it selectively as needed. It can be operated with key-combinations or with the trackpad.

Hover Text: This feature magnifies the text that is under the cursor and shows the text in a box on the portion of the screen you choose. It can be turned on and locked so that it always shows the magnified text under the cursor. Or you can use a key-combination to activate it whenever you need to see a bit of enlarged text. It also can be set up to show what you are typing in the box of magnification. Once you start using it, you will have a hard time using a computer without it.

Spoken text

Some people with low vision might think of spoken interfaces as accessibility for the totally blind. That is not the case at all. Spoken interfaces are for everyone, including people with no visual impairment.

You can get a little bit of spoken interface or a lot. It all depends on your needs and how you configure the system. It can take a surprisingly long time to get it dialed in just right because there are a lot of options across a lot of preference panels. These options don’t live in just one place.

I have very functional low vision so I don’t use VoiceOver as a general rule. But I have in the past. It can be rather helpful. But even low verbosity can be annoying when you don’t need it. Still, it can be a great tool if you are using a screen that is too small for you to comfortably use. For the most part, The VoiceOver interface gets out of the way, allowing you to use the computer exactly as you would were it not activated.

There is also a feature that allows you to hear what is under the cursor at any given moment. You can just send your pointer to a spot on the screen and it will immediately read it aloud. you can go through webpages and long documents that way just by using your mouse or trackpad. it can make quick work of small text.

Beyond those options, You can set things up so that you can selectively have a part or all of what is on screen read aloud to you. Place the pointer anywhere onscreen and hit the key-combo you set up for the task. The text will be read from that point until it reaches the end of the page or you intervene. In this mode, there is even a media player that pops up so that you can do things like rewind by sentence, fast-forward, or pause.

The last option involves chunks of text. You can select any chunk of text onscreen and have only that text read aloud to you. This allows you the flexibility of using the computer without any spoken interface and have only the bits and pieces read that you select. This can be good for editing.

Conclusion: Bigger is not always better

The sad truth is that for people with low vision, the way we work on small devices does not change with larger devices. We still have to use magnification and zoom and spoken interfaces. Nothing about the workflow is different. You have the same challenges and the same tools to deal with those challenges. Ironically, the person who has no visual impairment will be more affected by the size of the device because they will be using their eyes unaided. But since you already use the accessibility affordances, your vision is not as much of a limitation.

Bigger will generally get you a bigger battery and a longer battery life as a result. It will allow you to put a little more on the screen for greater information density. But the trade-offs are that you have a much larger and heavier device to bring with you and the result of that is you will use it less often due to the inconvenience.

If it is possible, go to a store where both the larger and smaller versions of the device you want are available for testing. Set up the accessibility features right there. If you can manage with the smaller device, that is almost always going to be the right pic for you.

David Johnson