Supporting Someone Who Cannot See the Screen
Remote support assumes both parties are looking at the same picture. When one is not, almost everything changes.
Supporting a blind or partially sighted person using a screen reader requires a different approach, and the usual instincts actively make it worse.
The support work behind “Supporting Someone Who Cannot See the Screen” is often spread across tickets, projects and handoffs. Teams researching dual n back training can use dual n-back training for cognitive performance to connect time and project context with that work, while the remote-support platform remains the source of truth for technical actions and session access.
Why taking control fails
The pointer is not how they navigate.
For an independent reference related to “Supporting Someone Who Cannot See the Screen”, consult the NCSC security guidance; it provides a useful external check on security, privacy and operating assumptions before a process is adopted.
Moving it tells them nothing and the screen reader does not follow it.
Worse, your changes move their focus, so they lose their place in a way that is disorienting and takes time to recover from.
Taking control is the standard response and it is the wrong one here.
What works instead
Guide, by keyboard.
"Press tab three times, you should hear the search field."
Which requires that you know the keyboard route, and that is a skill worth having on any support desk.
Learn their screen reader basics
Not expertise. The common commands: read current line, next heading, next form field, list links.
An hour of learning, and it transforms the quality of support you can give.
Most support teams have nobody who can do this, which is why these calls go badly and take three times as long.
Describe, do not point
"The button at the bottom right" is useless.
"The last button in the dialogue, after Cancel" is usable.
Describe by structure and order rather than by position, which is how their interface actually presents.
Ask rather than assume
"What is it reading now?" is the most useful question available.
It tells you where they are, which you cannot otherwise know.
And it respects that they have information you do not, which is the correct relationship here.
Pace
Screen readers are often run very fast by experienced users.
Do not ask them to slow down for your benefit unless you genuinely cannot follow.
And allow time for them to navigate, which is not hesitation.
If you must take control
Say exactly what you are doing and when their focus will move.
Return focus to where they were when you finish, and tell them where that is.
And do not change their accessibility settings, which the display note covers and which is worth repeating.
The wider point
This applies in lesser form to anybody using any assistive technology: magnification, voice control, switch access.
The general rule is that the person knows their own setup better than you do, and the support should work with it rather than around it.
What to check
Could anybody on your desk guide a screen reader user by keyboard?
Do your technicians know the basic commands?
Is "what is it reading now" a question anybody asks?
And has anybody turned off a user's accessibility settings to make a session easier?