Computer Aided Translation (CAT) Tools are essential in the current market. However, one of
the main disadvantages of the most commonly-used CAT tools, like Trados, MemoQ, and more is that
they are not accessible to visually-impaired translators. This critical disadvantage limits their job
opportunities in the market.
Most of the studies that are conducted on the accessibility in CAT tools are for different
language pairs rather than Arabic. In the light of Skopos theory by Hans Vermeer, the current paper
sheds the light on the accessibility in CAT tools in the Arab market to explore their efficiency for the
visually-impaired professional Arab translators working on the English-Arabic language pair. This
paper aims to explore how the commonly-used CAT tools are accessible or inaccessible, to what extent
they are compatible with the screen readers, and to suggest alternative CAT tools to be accessible to
the visually-impaired translators and also to be compatible with the commonly-used CAT tools.
In order to answer these questions, a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire is designed in
order to be answered by visually-impaired professional Arab translators and students in language
universities using CAT tools. At the end of this research, alternative CAT tools are suggested to be
accessible.