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Re: does datepicker have to be accessible

for

From: Mary Stores
Date: Feb 8, 2011 8:45AM

Hello,

Birkir is correct. In JAWS 11, you can control the way JAWS speaks
numbers by adjusting the settings in the Configuration Manager. For
example, you can have JAWS read 02-08-10 as "February 8, two thousand
ten." 02-08 can be read as "February 8."

As far as numbers themselves go, you can have JAWS read 123 as "one two
three," or "one hundred twenty-three." You can set JAWS to read numbers
in pairs, and if there's an odd digit, JAWS will read that one first
and pair the rest of the numbers. You can also adjust the number
threshold, so if you want a phone number or serial number read as
single digits, you can have JAWS pronounce all the number as single
digitsIf the number has dashes in it, you can control how JAWS speaks
those numbers as well.

As far as "mm/dd/yyyy" goes, I don't see anything wrong with pressing
ctrl-left arrow to that word and then right-arrowing through to see how
the format should go. It's good enough for me if the format is
specified.

Mary

Quoting Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >:

> Hi Andrew
>
> There is a pattern recognition capability, at least in the higher
> versions of Jaws, and you can specify rules for how patterns are
> pronounced (I am 99% sure, I use a braille display so I tend not to
> use it much).
> It depends on the version and the screen reader you have, whether and
> how they pronounced different things such as phone numbers.
> I have not come across a screen reader yet that pronounced dd/mm/yyyy
> or mm/dd/yyyy distinctly enough.
> But, like you said, may be this is actually one for the screen reader
> manufacturers, since it is common practice and this format can hardly
> be confused with anything else (the chances of dd/mm/yyyy being
> anything other than a date template or placeholder are remote).
> I'll jot this down and suggest it to the SR representatives at CSUN.
> Thanks
> -B
>
> On 2/8/11, Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Birkir,
>> This is an interesting problem - JAWS does allow you to configure the
>> reading for repeated letters, but this makes reading tedious in other ways
>> (e.g. when someone puts a line of periods or dashes as part of their email
>> sig). The default setting also means that if my phone number is
>> 123-456-0000 that you won't hear it correctly, won't it?
>>
>> I wonder whether screen reader vendors have considered parsing the text and
>> analyzing whether there is a phone number or a common date identifier. They
>> should - I doubt that many people will stop using mm/dd/yyyy since it is
>> short, and also avoids confusion for people who might enter the date as
>> dd/mm/yyyy....
>>
>> Thanks,
>> AWK
>>
>> Andrew Kirkpatrick
>> Group Product Manager, Accessibility
>> Adobe Systems
>>
>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> http://twitter.com/awkawk
>> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir Rúnar
>> Gunnarsson
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 9:33 AM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] does datepicker have to be accessible
>>
>> I would be fine with an input edit field, but I do recommend the
>> solution with 3 listboxes, month, day, year (or whichever order). This
>> will also simplify validation on the server side of the input format.
>> One thing I, as a user, find annoying is when the mm/dd/yyyy is in the
>> label for the field, Jaws does not clearly distinguish between this
>> and mm/dd/yy, so I would suggest a sample format such as (please enter
>> your date, for instance 01/01/2000). This way the format is conveyed
>> unambiguously to someone who only uses speech.
>> If there are limits on th dates you can enter (such as a booking
>> system that only accepts bookings till the end of the year), please
>> indicate that as well.
>> hth
>> -B
>>
>> On 2/8/11, Susan Grossman < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>>>> Scenario: a textbox meant to have a date written in it. A button next to
>>> it
>>> (calendar icon) which opens the datepicker to choose a date. One can enter
>>> a
>>> date manually into the textbox, as well. Does the datepicker need to be
>>> accessible, or is it enough that the user can manually enter a date into
>>> it
>>> without making use of the datepicker?
>>>
>>>
>>> --- Often the accessible date-pickers are more work than just typing it in
>>> and is something you should consider. As long as the format is clear, as
>>> stated by others, having a text box is just fine.
>>>
>>> There's nothing wrong with enhancing things for a user who doesn't need
>>> AT's
>>> as long as the main function works well for all. You can use colors the
>>> color-blind can't see as long as the contrast is there for them....
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Susan R. Grossman*
>>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>