Google’s New Accessibility Features Will Finally Make Small Text Easier to Read on Mobile Devices
Ahead of Google I/O 2025 , which kicks off on May 20, the company has announced several major accessibility-focused features for Android and Google Chrome. These include improvements to the Android screen reader, more expressive captions, and easier-to-read text in Chrome for Android. This follows recent accessibility-focused announcements from Apple, with both companies’ posts timed to coincide with International Accessibility Awareness Day (May 15). Here are the best new accessibility features coming to Android and Chrome.
Improved Narrator on Android
TalkBack is Android’s screen reader, and while it’s had Gemini AI integration for a while now, it’s getting a few updates. Previously, the AI could generate descriptions of images on the screen, even if they didn’t have alt text (which is what screen readers typically do to describe images). Now, Google is expanding its feature set to include support for Q&A for images. This should help users learn more about what’s in the picture, like the brand and model of the product, whether it’s on sale, and what else is in the photo. You can even use TalkBack to ask Gemini to look at clothes on a shopping site and recommend the best pick for a particular occasion, Google suggests.
Captions will convey more emotions
When you watch a sports game with subtitles on, the text doesn’t always convey the emotion behind the commentary. If a player scores an incredible goal, the commentator might say, “Go …
Easily read small text in Chrome for Android
Google is trying to make text easier to read in Chrome for Android. If you find the default font size too small, Chrome’s new Page Zoom feature will let you increase the font size without zooming in on the rest of the website. Google says you’ll be able to customize your settings and save your preferences for all websites.
Improved Narrator support for PDFs in Chrome
In Chrome for desktop, Google is adding the ability to use Narrator to interact with scanned PDFs. Chrome will use OCR (optical character recognition) to identify scanned pages and will allow Narrator to select, highlight, copy, and search text.