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Re: Punctuation in JAWS

for

From: David Farough
Date: Jun 3, 2010 9:30AM

When designing your material be careful that you are not relying on the
screen reader to articulate specific punctuation. For example, if you
are setting up material that requires "fill in the blank" type
responses, you should be careful to indicate to the test taker what
character you will be using to indicate the blank responses to be
entered. If forewarned, the user would be able to search for these
characters or insure that the screen reader is configured to speak the
characters. Often people will configure the screen reader to speak as
little punctuation as possible in order to get through material as
quickly as possible. Screen reader users will typically configure the
screen reader to speak as quickly as they can get it to speak while
maintaining an understanding of the material. Also if you use
formatting such as bolding or underlining for emphasis, be aware that
the screen reader by default will not indicate this formatting. These
configuration options can be applied, but it does increase the amount of
time it takes to articulate the material, and it does detract from the
flow of the material and can be distracting to hear each change of
formatting in the text.

David Farough
Application Accessibility Coordinator/coordonateur de l'accessibilité
Information Technology Services Directorate /
Direction des services d'information technologiques
Public Service Commission / Commission de la fonction publique
Email / Courriel: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Tel. / Tél: (613) 992-2779

>>> "Carin Headrick" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 09:49 am Thursday, June
03, 2010 >>>
The amount of punctuation spoken is user-defined. On my system, it reat
I
apologize I'm sorry, that's just the way I am. The comma was simply
signified by a pause and I had to look for the parentheses. So, it all

depends on the user's preferences.

Carin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Garcia, Bobby" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 9:42 AM
Subject: [WebAIM] Punctuation in JAWS


Hey, gang! I'm developing some web-based training courses that are
being
tested for accessibility using JAWS. What I noticed is that JAWS reads
punctuation and I'm curious to get some different views on this.



Take, for example, the following statement: I never apologize (I'm
sorry, that's just the way I am).



Jaws will read: I never apologize open parens I'm sorry...



My question is, does this take away/add to the user's experience? Is
it
a hindrance to hear that, is it superfluous, or do any users benefit
from visualizing the parens? I mean, I know I can always tailor my
content to avoid using excessive punctuation but I'd still like to
know
how different people feel about this. And not necessarily JAWS only,
but
any other screen readers, as well.



Thanks!



Bobby Garcia