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Re: How does a Screen Reader work?

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From: Travis Roth
Date: Mar 3, 2007 9:20PM

Hi Tedd,

Mac has a screen reader as well. It is called VoiceOver, and ships as part
of OS 10.4 and later. I understand that it is not as far along developed as
its Windows counterparts at this time.

Observation on your captcha demo:
* It is similar to Google's, and the audio quality seems similar.
* The page refreshes twice when the "Speak Captcha" button is pressed. When
a page refreshes the screen reader will read the new page. Thus presently
the audio and the screen reader both are speaking at the same time; which is
a rather difficult situation. The user can silence the screen reader, but
needs to be quick about it.
* Again, the page is refreshed when the "Speak Captcha" button is pressed.
While the audio is playing, the edit field is not present for the user to
type. This causes the user to have to remember the sequence of keystrokes
until after the page refreshes, and the edit field is navigated to and
typing can begin. The longer the captcha the more problemmatic this will be.

* Would be better if user could type as the characters are heard. To do
this, do not refresh the page, use some JavaScrit / Ajax techniques here.
* This technique of using sound will work for those who can hear and
understand reasonably well. However, deaf-blind users, and certain other
hard of hearing users will still be locked out.

Travis Roth
Production Manager
TecAccess, LLC
(804) 749-8646 (office)
(402) 466-0907 (direct)
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.TecAccess.net
Experts in Section 508 Compliance & Accessibility

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