Can I use a vector editor with a screen reader?

Screen reader users can. Vectornation by Zaweba tells screen readers about the canvas, the current selection and changes as you make them, and View > Keyboard pointer (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M) lets you work the canvas without a mouse. Ctrl+F6 moves between the parts of the window, so you can get from the canvas to the panels and back by keyboard alone.

Drawing programs have a poor record here. The canvas is usually a picture as far as assistive technology is concerned, and a screen reader user hears little or nothing about what is on it. Vectornation was built to describe its canvas rather than leave it silent.

What the screen reader hears

Three things are announced. The canvas, so you have a sense of what the drawing contains. The selection, so when you select an object you know what it is. And changes, so when you move, resize or recolour something you get confirmation that it happened.

Menus, panels and dialogs are standard parts of the window, and the interface is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese, set in Edit > Preferences > User interface > Language.

Working without a mouse

The keyboard pointer turns the keyboard into a way of pointing at and acting on the canvas. Switch it on from the View menu or with Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M. It is useful for people who cannot use a mouse or a pen comfortably, and for anyone with a repetitive strain injury who needs a break from one.

Ctrl+F6 cycles between the main parts of the window. Combined with the menus and Help > Find a command (Ctrl+/), which searches commands by name, most of the program can be reached from the keyboard.

Exact values instead of dragging

Vector drawing suits keyboard work because so much of it is numbers rather than brush strokes. The Colour panel takes values in Grey, RGB, HSB, CMYK, Lab and web modes, so a colour can be entered exactly instead of picked by eye, and the Ruler tool reports distance, angle, width and height in the status bar as well as on the canvas.

Making it comfortable

Learn the shortcuts. They follow Illustrator's Windows shortcuts by default and can be changed in Edit > Keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K), with clashes refused, so you can put the commands you use most on keys that are easy to reach.

Use the help. Help > Vectornation help (F1) is a searchable help browser that opens at the page for the tool in use, which is easier to navigate with a screen reader than hunting through a website.

Use actions for repeated jobs. Recording a sequence once and playing it back cuts down the number of keystrokes a long task needs.

Being realistic

Vector art is visual, and some tasks, such as judging a curve by eye, rely on sight. What good accessibility does is make the structure of a drawing and the effect of every command available, which opens up a great deal of real work: building diagrams, adjusting layouts, checking files, preparing print jobs and working alongside sighted colleagues on shared files.

Vectornation by Zaweba is free software for Windows that works offline and needs no account.