Vision tools

Tools that help if you can’t see the screen, or only partly. The Screen reader is the centerpiece; this page covers everything else under the Vision section of the popup.

Read aloud

What it does. Speaks the text you’ve selected, or the focused element if no selection. Uses the browser’s built-in voice (no cloud call).

When to use. Quick listen-back of a paragraph without engaging the full screen reader. Good for proofreading your own writing, re-listening to a sentence, or sharing audio of a passage.

How. Select text and click Read aloud in the popup. Or if nothing’s selected, focus an element and click — Wholisphere speaks that element’s content.

Stop. Click again, or press Control alone.

WCAG: 1.4.1, 1.4.5.

Read this page

What it does. Builds an outline of the current page (3–5 sections), speaks each in order, and highlights the paragraph being read so you can follow visually.

When to use. Long-form articles, blog posts, news pages, documentation. Anywhere you’d rather listen than read.

How. Click Read this page. Optionally select your TTS voice and rate in the popup before clicking.

Stop. Click again.

Limits. Pages shorter than ~200 characters are skipped (not worth a cloud call). Pages with no clear <main> / <article> fall back to the body — quality varies.

WCAG: 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 2.4.6.

Describe image

What it does. Captures a screenshot of an image on the page and asks the cloud vision model to describe it for you. Speaks the result.

When to use. Any image without alt text, or with bad alt text (“image”, “photo”, “img_2024.jpg”).

How. Two ways:

Hotkey: focus or hover over an image and press Ctrl+Alt+D.
Popup tile: click Describe image. Wholisphere picks either the focused image or the largest image in your viewport (whichever is more meaningful).

Limits. Cross-origin images without proper CORS headers cannot be captured (browser security). The error message will tell you that’s what happened.

WCAG: 1.1.1.

Describe video

What it does. While a video plays, samples a frame every few seconds, asks the cloud vision model to describe what’s happening, and speaks the description timed to playback. Works on any HTML5 <video> element.

When to use. Videos without audio descriptions or captions. Same WCAG goal as broadcast audio description, applied to web video.

How. Click Describe video. Wholisphere finds video elements on the page and starts narrating playback. Click again to stop.

Limits. Cross-origin videos (most YouTube embeds, for example) can’t be sampled because the browser taints the canvas. Wholisphere detects this and stops cleanly with a message.

WCAG: 1.2.3, 1.2.5.

Continuous read

What it does. Reads everything on the page top-to-bottom, with arrow-key navigation to step forward / back, and quick-letter keys (H for next heading, K for next link, B for next button, etc.). A green ring follows the current element so you can see where you are.

When to use. Newspaper-style “read me the page” experience without engaging the full screen reader.

How. Click Read whole page under Vision. Use:

↓ / ↑ — step forward / back one element.
Space — pause and resume.
Home — back to the top.
H, K, B, L — next heading / link / button / list.
Escape — stop and close.

WCAG: 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 2.4.6.

High contrast

What it does. Boosts page contrast via a CSS filter applied to your view of the page only. Three intensities: subtle, strong, and inverted.

When to use. Low contrast text or borderline-readable themes.

How. Click High contrast in the popup. Repeat to cycle intensity. The body’s html.whs-high-contrast class is what applies the filter — it’s reversible by toggling off.

WCAG: 1.4.3, 1.4.6, 1.4.11.

Find low contrast

What it does. Scans the page for text and UI components that fall below WCAG contrast thresholds (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for non-text). Lists each in a side panel; clicking a finding scrolls to and outlines the offending element.

When to use. When you suspect a page has accessibility issues and want concrete findings to report. Designers and QA also use this on their own products.

How. Click Find low contrast. Review the panel. Click any finding to jump to it.

WCAG: 1.4.3, 1.4.6, 1.4.11.

Larger text

What it does. Scales text up across the page without breaking layout (uses CSS zoom + text-size-adjust).

When to use. Cleaner than browser zoom because it doesn’t re-flow images and chrome.

How. Click Larger text. Repeat to step up. The popup also shows a reset button.

WCAG: 1.4.4, 1.4.12.

Color filter

What it does. Color-blindness simulation filters (deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia, monochrome) and a high-saturation mode for low-vision.

When to use. Designers testing how a UI reads to a color-blind user; users picking the palette they see best.

How. Click Color filter to step through. Click again at the end to turn off.

WCAG: 1.4.1.

Reduce motion

What it does. Pauses animations, transitions, and parallax-on-scroll. Uses CSS prefers-reduced-motion overrides plus targeted style injections.

When to use. Vestibular sensitivity, cognitive distraction, or simply preference. Wholisphere also respects your system prefers-reduced-motion setting; this capability is for sites that ignore it.

How. Click Reduce motion. Toggle off to restore.

WCAG: 2.3.3.

Flash protection

What it does. Detects flashing video and GIF sequences that might trigger photosensitive epilepsy and dampens them by overlaying a dimmed mask.

When to use. Always, if you have photosensitive epilepsy. Set it to on by default and forget it’s there.

How. Click Flash protection to enable. Stays on across pages.

WCAG: 2.3.1, 2.3.2.