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Re: Screen reader question

for

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Dec 13, 2007 3:40AM

Jared Smith wrote:
> You usually should not attempt fixing the MANY reading issues that
> screen readers have. Luckily, screen reader users are typically aware
> of these and use various methods (such as reading character by
> character or identifying punctuation) to make sense of information
> that doesn't seem to be read correctly. Trying to hack them to work
> the way we think they should is usually a bad idea and may result in
> issues in other screen readers.

Jared is right and its an important point. If some element of a page (a
table etc) has been marked up correctly then the screen reader user can
tap into features already existing in their AT to interrogate the
element. For example there are commands like "Speak all" or the ability
to read content character by character that are often used when there is
confusing or ambiguity in the content, and many screen reader users will
do this. Most are used to AT output being "slightly off". Relying on
this kind of functionality is not even really only for power users and
is fairly common among more basic level users of screen readers.

If XStandard are putting in some kind of "see what your content will be
like to a screen reader user" feature and this will be useful, don't
worry *too* much about trying to simulate perfect output as it's not
perfect for the existing AT :-)

Cheers

Josh

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