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Re: Speech output for a Trip Planner Table

for

From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Jun 8, 2008 4:10AM

Tom Kort wrote:
> I am working on the accessibility of trip planners.

Trip planners are notorious for accessibility problems. Would you mind
explaining in what capacity you are working on them? Are you developing
one? Testing one?

> In my work I am currently using the Job Access to Work (JAWS) screen
> reader program on the Vancouver translink.bc.ca website.

A link to the precise page, or a description of how to get there, would
be helpful. Are you talking about:

http://tripplanning.translink.bc.ca/

Also, is this trip planner a planner you are developing, retrofitting,
or simply one you are using as an example for your own work?

Some (slightly) better examples you might like to look at include:

http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/

http://traintimes.org.uk/

> When I access the trip planner for Translink I get something like:

> A readout of the top navigation bar ("link graphic bus schedules nav
> slash five", etc) A readout of the main graphic ("link graphic South
> Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority") A readout of the
> bottom navigation bar ("link graphic home nav slash five", etc)
> ....readout of some more graphics... A readout of the table name A
> readout of the headers ("link graphic trip options, link graphic
> start, link graphic trip end", etc.) A readout of the first table
> row: "Detail Expo Line 5 15p 5 19p 4min 00 point 62 k m dollar 2
> point 5 0" The output I ultimately want is "Press for Details,
> Transit Line Expo Line, Trip Start 5 15pm, Trip End 5 19pm, Duration
> 4 min, Transfers 0, Walk 0 point 62km, dollar 2 point 5 0"
>
>
> Question. Is there a good method to produce my desired speech output?
>
While it's reasonable to think about aural rendering on a micro
level, e.g. how different date and time formats are read, your focus on
a macro level needs to be on strategies users with different abilities
employ to navigate the web, the transactions a given web resource is
intended to facilitate, and how the features provided by the web
technology stack, taking into account both specifications and
implementations, can best support them.

W3C's "How People with Disabilities Use the Web" is a good starting point:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-Use-Web/Overview.html

as is the BBC Access 2.0 blog's series of interviews with people with
disabilities:

http://tinyurl.com/6k2zsq

I'd recommend the following videos about how people use assistive
technology:

http://del.icio.us/benjaminhawkeslewis/video%2BuserStrategies%2Bdisabled

Doug Geoffray's talk on screen reader technology is also useful:

Doug Geoffray: From the Mouth of a Screenreader (Part 1)
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/357221

Doug Geoffray: From the Mouth of a Screenreader (Part 2)
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/357221

I'd recommend looking through draft WCAG 2.0 as a starting point guide
to using web features to meet those needs:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20

There are good introductory guides to form and table accessibility
issues on the WebAIM site:

http://www.webaim.org/techniques/forms/

http://www.webaim.org/techniques/tables/

In terms of complex forms programming, perhaps the most important
additional insight is to keep instructions for using a form in fieldset
legends or field labels or field TITLE attributes or before the FORM
element, since if you place it elsewhere inside the FORM element (in a
heading or paragraph element for example) it may be missed entirely if a
JAWS user moves from form control to form control in JAWS forms mode (or
the equivalent in other screen readers).

Finally, involve end-users in testing your solution by asking on
end-user discussion groups:

Freedom Scientific JAWS users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.freelists.org/list/jfw

Dolphin HAL users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dolphinusers/

GW-Micro Window-Eyes users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.gwmicro.com/Support/GW-Info_Archives/

Apple VoiceOver users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover/

GNOME Orca users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list

NVDA users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.freelists.org/list/nvda

Thunder users:
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.freelists.org/list/thunder

> Can JAWS or any other popular screen reader program filter out the
> "p" on the time (5:19p)?

Why is there a "p" there in the first place? What does it mean? Why
isn't it correctly written as "5.19 p.m."?

> Can JAWS read the column of a table as it traverses a row?

There's a good introduction to JAWS's table navigation facilities at:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/Surfs_Up/Tables.htm

The manual has further details under the "HTML Tables" topic, including
the following:

> When you move to the next or prior cell in the same row using table
> navigation commands such as ALT+CTRL+RIGHT ARROW, JAWS reads the
> column header and the data in the cell and announces the column
> number.

http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/doc_screenreaders.asp

Tom continues:

> One weird thing happens... When I get the trip planner results,
> sometimes I get the readout of the previous page, instead of the
> current page, Why is this?

To answer this, we'd need instructions on how to reproduce the problem.
If I had to guess, I suspect that the page was actually being
dynamically updated by JS in a way that does not cause JAWS to update
its virtual buffer. See discussions (from various points of view) at:

http://del.icio.us/benjaminhawkeslewis/ajax%2BscreenReaders

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis