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Thread: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
Number of posts in this thread: 17 (In chronological order)
From: Dana Douglas
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 1:02PM
Subject: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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Greetings,
We've come across an interesting issue regarding how screen readers indicate underlined or strike-through text on a web page. In the context (legal documentation), this kind of information is vital to the user so they can tell what text has been removed (strike-through) and what text has been added (underline). From what we can tell, aside from hard coding this information into the site, it is our understanding that you can typically change a setting in your screen reader to have it indicate "begin underline" and "end underline" at the beginning and end of a section of underlined (or strike-through) text. Does anyone know if there are also settings for changing the pitch or volume to indicate such or would that be too confusing with pitch changes for upper-case and lower-case letters and words?
Otherwise, does anyone know of any different ways to provide this type of indication? Any insight or suggestions are welcome!
Thank you!
Dana Douglas
From: Sean Curtis
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 3:04PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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Hi Dana,
Have you looked at using the <ins> and <del> elements and then styling them accordingly? I believe they are the correct semantic elements you want to be using in this instance. Screen readers should announce these with different inflections to standard text.
Cheers,
Sean
> On 18 Jun 2014, at 5:02 am, Dana Douglas < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> We've come across an interesting issue regarding how screen readers indicate underlined or strike-through text on a web page. In the context (legal documentation), this kind of information is vital to the user so they can tell what text has been removed (strike-through) and what text has been added (underline). From what we can tell, aside from hard coding this information into the site, it is our understanding that you can typically change a setting in your screen reader to have it indicate "begin underline" and "end underline" at the beginning and end of a section of underlined (or strike-through) text. Does anyone know if there are also settings for changing the pitch or volume to indicate such or would that be too confusing with pitch changes for upper-case and lower-case letters and words?
>
> Otherwise, does anyone know of any different ways to provide this type of indication? Any insight or suggestions are welcome!
>
> Thank you!
>
> Dana Douglas
>
> > >
From: Sean Curtis
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 3:08PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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Hi Dana,
Further to my previous email, take a look at these two pages which describe ins and del as well as their additional attributes.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/del
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ins
Cheers,
Sean
> On 18 Jun 2014, at 5:02 am, Dana Douglas < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> We've come across an interesting issue regarding how screen readers indicate underlined or strike-through text on a web page. In the context (legal documentation), this kind of information is vital to the user so they can tell what text has been removed (strike-through) and what text has been added (underline). From what we can tell, aside from hard coding this information into the site, it is our understanding that you can typically change a setting in your screen reader to have it indicate "begin underline" and "end underline" at the beginning and end of a section of underlined (or strike-through) text. Does anyone know if there are also settings for changing the pitch or volume to indicate such or would that be too confusing with pitch changes for upper-case and lower-case letters and words?
>
> Otherwise, does anyone know of any different ways to provide this type of indication? Any insight or suggestions are welcome!
>
> Thank you!
>
> Dana Douglas
>
> > >
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 3:43PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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Jaws has a proof reading scheme (in Jaws, press alt-JawsKey-s
toactivate.. usually JawsKey is the insert key, capslock for a laptop
keyboard layout).
I think this will work for strikethrough/del tags. The regular speech
scheme absolutely does nothing when encountering this type of markup.
I am not sure about NVDA, but I do not think there is a support.
Feel free to search through the NVDA issue database and see if tickets
have been filed.
If not, I encourage you to file a ticket, and I would be happy to add comments.
Voiceover has not supported this in any way, AFAIK.
Cheers
-B
On 6/17/14, Sean Curtis < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi Dana,
>
> Further to my previous email, take a look at these two pages which describe
> ins and del as well as their additional attributes.
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/del
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ins
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sean
>
>> On 18 Jun 2014, at 5:02 am, Dana Douglas < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> We've come across an interesting issue regarding how screen readers
>> indicate underlined or strike-through text on a web page. In the context
>> (legal documentation), this kind of information is vital to the user so
>> they can tell what text has been removed (strike-through) and what text
>> has been added (underline). From what we can tell, aside from hard coding
>> this information into the site, it is our understanding that you can
>> typically change a setting in your screen reader to have it indicate
>> "begin underline" and "end underline" at the beginning and end of a
>> section of underlined (or strike-through) text. Does anyone know if there
>> are also settings for changing the pitch or volume to indicate such or
>> would that be too confusing with pitch changes for upper-case and
>> lower-case letters and words?
>>
>> Otherwise, does anyone know of any different ways to provide this type of
>> indication? Any insight or suggestions are welcome!
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Dana Douglas
>>
>> >> >> > > > >
--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 2:11PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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Witch screen reader are your students using
Each one does it a little differently
Lucia Greco
Web Accessibility Evangelist
IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces
From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 5:35PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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This is legal document markup? Hideous stuff for anyone to read.
Could someone who is more of a Word maven write a script or macro to turn
word Underline and Strikeover into <del> and <ins>?
I ask because it's my bet that the HTML is straight from a Word document,
and if you can't make the transformation accurately repeatable, you won't
be able to use it because it will add to the process of vetting the markup.
To Lucy: standards, standards, standards. This doesn't sound like something
that should be tailored for a specific brand of screen reader. But I'd be
tempted to include a "how to" note to tell sr users how to set up their AT
instead.
Whitney
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Witch screen reader are your students using
> Each one does it a little differently
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Accessibility Evangelist
> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 5:38PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
← Previous message | Next message →
Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things differ
in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
when they are using the other smile.
Lucia Greco
Web Accessibility Evangelist
IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces
From: Sean Curtis
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 6:00PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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I've just done some testing and the results are a little depressing. The
HTML I tested was:
<p>Accessibility is really <del>hard</del><ins>easy</ins>.</p>
Results:
- VoiceOver in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox: the text was read, but no
special inflection was made to differentiate them.
- NVDA (2014.1) in IE/Firefox/Chrome: the same as VoiceOver
- JAWS 15 in IE/Firefox/Chrome: as above, however there's a special
reading mode which did add inflection to them (see
http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2008/02/screen-readers-lack-emphasis/)
My recommendation is to use the <del> and <ins> elements and raise bugs
with each of the relevant screen readers.
Cheers,
Sean
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things differ
> in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
> different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
> when they are using the other smile.
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Accessibility Evangelist
> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: David Ashleydale
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 6:22PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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For something that completely unsupported, wouldn't the recommendation be
to shore it up with some hidden text? Especially for legal documents. A
misunderstand of what has been crossed could be critical.
David
On Tuesday, June 17, 2014, Sean Curtis < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I've just done some testing and the results are a little depressing. The
> HTML I tested was:
>
> <p>Accessibility is really <del>hard</del><ins>easy</ins>.</p>
>
> Results:
>
> - VoiceOver in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox: the text was read, but no
> special inflection was made to differentiate them.
> - NVDA (2014.1) in IE/Firefox/Chrome: the same as VoiceOver
> - JAWS 15 in IE/Firefox/Chrome: as above, however there's a special
> reading mode which did add inflection to them (see
> http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2008/02/screen-readers-lack-emphasis/)
>
> My recommendation is to use the <del> and <ins> elements and raise bugs
> with each of the relevant screen readers.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things
> differ
> > in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
> > different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
> > when they are using the other smile.
> >
> > Lucia Greco
> > Web Accessibility Evangelist
> > IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> > http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> > Follow me on twitter @accessaces
> >
> >
> >
From: Sean Curtis
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 6:28PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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I tried using aria-describedby on them, but none of it was read because the
elements don't have any special roles, and thus are not focused. I'd be
concerned about putting "hidden text" in there because while it might
prevent confusion for screen readers, you'd have to be very careful that
the content was never printed or output visually. I'd be more concerned
about that level of confusion than confusion for screen readers.
Cheers,
Sean
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 10:22 AM, David Ashleydale < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> For something that completely unsupported, wouldn't the recommendation be
> to shore it up with some hidden text? Especially for legal documents. A
> misunderstand of what has been crossed could be critical.
>
> David
>
> On Tuesday, June 17, 2014, Sean Curtis < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > I've just done some testing and the results are a little depressing. The
> > HTML I tested was:
> >
> > <p>Accessibility is really <del>hard</del><ins>easy</ins>.</p>
> >
> > Results:
> >
> > - VoiceOver in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox: the text was read, but no
> > special inflection was made to differentiate them.
> > - NVDA (2014.1) in IE/Firefox/Chrome: the same as VoiceOver
> > - JAWS 15 in IE/Firefox/Chrome: as above, however there's a special
> > reading mode which did add inflection to them (see
> > http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2008/02/screen-readers-lack-emphasis/)
> >
> > My recommendation is to use the <del> and <ins> elements and raise bugs
> > with each of the relevant screen readers.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Sean
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > > Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things
> > differ
> > > in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
> > > different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
> > > when they are using the other smile.
> > >
> > > Lucia Greco
> > > Web Accessibility Evangelist
> > > IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> > > University of California, Berkeley
> > > (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> > > http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> > > Follow me on twitter @accessaces
> > >
> > >
> > >
From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 6:46PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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David Ashleydale wrote:
> For something that completely unsupported, wouldn't the recommendation be
> to shore it up with some hidden text?
That is a hack. What happens when some screen readers start to support
it? They then get the information twice.
The solution is for screen readers to get their act together and
support this basic markup. It's maddening that screen readers still
don't support basic, two-decade-old HTML like <strong> and <em>.
Jared
From: Sean Curtis
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 6:50PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
← Previous message | Next message →
Spot on Jared. People are already hesitant to tackle accessibility, but
it's not going to help the cause when even simple stuff such as this is not
supported.
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> David Ashleydale wrote:
> > For something that completely unsupported, wouldn't the recommendation be
> > to shore it up with some hidden text?
>
> That is a hack. What happens when some screen readers start to support
> it? They then get the information twice.
>
> The solution is for screen readers to get their act together and
> support this basic markup. It's maddening that screen readers still
> don't support basic, two-decade-old HTML like <strong> and <em>.
>
> Jared
> > > >
From: Steve Faulkner
Date: Tue, Jun 17 2014 11:55PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
← Previous message | Next message →
On 18 June 2014 01:46, Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> The solution is for screen readers to get their act together and
> support this basic markup. It's maddening that screen readers still
> don't support basic, two-decade-old HTML like <strong> and <em>.
>
whilst I agree its a hack, it may be a necessary one for legal documents at
this time. Its also not only screen readers who need to get their act
together, its browsers that need to convey the semantics of the HTML
features via accessibility APIs, which in most instances for text level
semantics they do not.
--
Regards
SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>;
From: Liko, Todd
Date: Wed, Jun 18 2014 3:55AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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From: Liko, Todd
Date: Wed, Jun 18 2014 3:58AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
← Previous message | Next message →
We have technical standards documents that contain underline and striketrhough which have been converted to PDF, which is how the users of these documents consume them. Although a very tedious process, we have user <span> tags with alternative text to indicate underline and strikethrough.
Todd.
From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Wed, Jun 18 2014 6:18AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
← Previous message | Next message →
Lucy,
Agree.
I just meant that if you have a document that relies on an unusual command
or setting, it might be nice to set up a page that explains the settings in
the popular screen readers. I'm thinking of how the BBC (and other) site
accessibility includes some general help for useful, but less known
settings.
Whitney
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 7:38 PM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things differ
> in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
> different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
> when they are using the other smile.
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Accessibility Evangelist
> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Wed, Jun 18 2014 2:46PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader indications of underlined or strike-through text
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JAWS does announce STRONG, EM, B, I, DEL, INS, STRIKE in Internet
Explorer on the sample page
http://files.paciellogroup.com/blogmisc/strong.html
In Firefox it does not announce STRONG and BOLD however.
I tested it with JAWS 14 and 15 using Proof Reading (attributes)
scheme. (Some users might prefer this scheme as a default!)
So perhaps this is an indication that browsers too are lacking ... as
Steve suggested?
Thanks,
Sailesh
On 6/18/14, Whitney Quesenbery < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Lucy,
>
> Agree.
>
> I just meant that if you have a document that relies on an unusual command
> or setting, it might be nice to set up a page that explains the settings in
> the popular screen readers. I'm thinking of how the BBC (and other) site
> accessibility includes some general help for useful, but less known
> settings.
>
>
> Whitney
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 7:38 PM, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> Yes I agree but the keyboard commands for how to do the same things
>> differ
>> in each screen reader. I was not saying it was good that they are
>> different but can't help tell them by telling them how to do it in one
>> when they are using the other smile.
>>
>> Lucia Greco
>> Web Accessibility Evangelist
>> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
>> University of California, Berkeley
>> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
>> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>>
>>
>>