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RE: Separating links

for

From: Philip Pawley
Date: Mar 27, 2002 8:19PM


>Rather than trying to explain this in an email format alone, I created a
>test page at http://www.webaim.org/paul/test/screen-reader-link-test. I
>included some notes and observations. I tested the page with JAWS 3.5 (I
>will test it with more recent versions later) and Home Page Reader 3.0.
>I have not yet tested it with Window Eyes or any other product.

Thanks for putting up the page, Paul.

I see what you were getting at very clearly.

Both JAWS (I'm using 4.0) and HPR 3.0 do seem to read links very differently according to context. Where they form a sentence they are indeed run together as a sentence. Where they are not (as would usually be the case) they are well separated. That's why I never heard the problems you mentioned when I tried JAWS and HPR on my site.

Very clever programming work there. I think I would consider it a feature rather than a bug. Seeing just how clever it is, I feel I can forgive a few blunders here and there. I definitely prefer HPR though: JAWS, even when slowed down, never pauses for breath! It makes everything much more difficult to understand.

Speaking for myself, now that the mystery (of what you were getting at) is cleared up, I don't feel any need to dwell on these matters any further.

What I would still like to know is whether the problems mentioned in WAI guideline 10.5 appear in a more substantial manner in older versions of the software. Given the cost, the older versions will surely still be used by many (maybe most) users.

Thanks and all the best,


--
Philip Pawley
Liverpool, UK
http://www.alexanderworks.org/
--





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