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Windows 7 magnifier impractical for vision impaired people

Dan Warne has tipped us off about a "bug" in Windows 7 for vision impaired people.

Dr Scott Hollier of Media Access Australia wrote to APC mag to reveal the problem.

Hollier says "The bug occurs when a user tries to use the full screen Magnifier in combination with a high contrast colour scheme. The Magnifier appears to be largely dependent on the Aero graphics engine, meaning that it works well when Aero colour themes are used. However, when a user switches to a high contrast colour scheme such as High Contrast Black, the OS dumps the user back into the old Magnifier feature which, by default, shows a small magnification bar at the top of the screen."

According to Hollier the "majority of people that need the full screen magnifier will also need a high contrast colour scheme" so this could be a huge issue for the thousands of visually impaired people. We have contacted Microsoft for a response and are awaiting a company spokesperson to provide further feedback to this issue.

As is often the case "it's not a bug it's a feature" springs to mind but it's a feature Microsoft should certainly change.

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