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Re: Large numbers and currency symbols in screen readers

for

From: Patrick Burke
Date: May 6, 2009 10:05AM


With standard settings in Jaws 10 (at least I don't think I changed
anything), options A and E read incorrectly. All the others read the
same way ("Five hundred eight million dollars").

There are several user-changeable settings (for punctuation
filtering, number processing etc.) that can affect the speech
rendering by a given screen reader or speech synthesis engine. This
is well beyond the control of the content author to predict exact behavior.

So, I would suggest sticking with one of the numbers-only options
(commas or no doesn't seem to matter, though the European usage of .
to divide up numbers will confuse American screen readers). The M for
"million" abbreviation seems to be the only really tricky version.

Patrick

At 08:30 AM 5/6/2009, Robison, Cole [EISU] wrote:
>I'm looking for some insight in how to best optimize the representation
>of large dollar figures in alt text, particularly with respect to how
>screen readers typically handle the various alternatives.
>
>I've been presented with a proposed alt attribute value containing a
>familiar shorthand representation like:
>
>$508M
>
>I assume that the "M" for "million" could be confusing, and that
>spelling it out would be better:
>
>$508 million
>
>But I wonder how this compares to doing so numerically:
>
>$508,000,000
>
>Is one approach preferred over the other?
>
>(And if the full numerical representation is used, is it better to
>include or exclude the commas?)
>
>I also wonder about the dollar sign: is it read before the number, as
>written, or do screen readers make the adjustment to read it as the word
>"dollars" after the number? (And if they do, would the number, followed
>by a space, followed by the word "million" trip it up? That is, would
>"$508 million" become "five hundred eight dollars million"?) In short,
>would it be better to replace the dollar sign with the word "dollars"
>after the figure?
>
>These, then, are the various possibilities:
>
>a) $508 M
>b) $508 million
>c) $508,000,000
>d) $508000000
>e) 508 M dollars
>f) 508 million dollars
>g) 508,000,000 dollars
>h) 508000000 dollars
>
>Which is best?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Cole Robison
>Director of Statewide Web/IT Accessibility
>Division of Information Systems and Communications
>State of Kansas
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>(785) 291-3016
>
>
>