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Re: Excellent paper on how screen reader users interactwith webpages

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Apr 11, 2012 3:26PM

I won't say my experience is expansive, but I find the AT training of people to vary greatly.

My feeling is that people with disabilities probably don't have any better or worse level of training on their AT than the general population has with regards to technology. I think the big difference is that a lot of people learn how to use technology from other people--and most of the time people using AT probably don't have as great an access to peers so they can share techniques.

Most of the time, I have noticed that people using AT learn enough to do whatever they feel they need to do or desire strongly to do. They don't necessarily learn the optimal way, but just a way. If aI recall correctly, I think there is an usability research paper that refers to that as "satisficing" (satis-facing) which is the tendency of most users to learn a method of doing something and then stick with it even if there might be more efficient methods out there.

It would be great if people did learn how to use their AT better. However, I just consider it one of the issues I need to consider in design since typically it isn't one I can directly address. It definitely does add to the challenge.

I expect most of you might have run into such issues in the past. For instance, a screen reader or two has a feature that will allow them to do something but by default it is turned off. If just about everyone knows about that design feature, you might be able to design with it in mind. But if most people are not aware of it, then you could be creating a really bad design. That is part of the value of designing with standards as part of the foundation you build your UI's on.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 3:14 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Excellent paper on how screen reader users interact with webpages

Very good point, and my bad for not picking up on it (the speed
reading aspectsof screen reading obviously used to not-so-great effect
there).
What kind of interests me,and I wonder if that has changed at all, is
the SR design and training aspects of web accessibility and web
browsing.
Jaws still says "skip to content" with emphasis on the second syllabol
(latest version of Jaws 13), so that bug has not been fixed since it
was pointed out in 2002.
In particular I wonder about the user training.
If users today do not use "h" ";" and other navigation keys that take
advantage of a well structured page (headings and landmarks
respectively for these two keys). If users are not generally aware of
"skip to" links and other features implemented to make web pages more
accessible, how useful is all the work that we are doing and the
things we are recommending to webpage designers, based on best
practices?
There is no point in having a perfectly structured page, if the user
has no idea how to take advantage of it.
Is there an on-going conversation between webpage designers, SR
developers and atrainers that work with users (I would assume TVIs in
this case) , making sure that we are all following the same practices,
in design, implmentation and training?
The reason I found this article so timely is I am fighting this very
same battle in Iceland. The new AT teacher, who is extremely smart and
someone I respect a lot, uses her own techniques to browse websites
and does not teach the standard ways of browsing with the navigation
keys, so that the users of a page I recently did a lot of work on, did
not find its accessibility much improved, if at all.
Once I sat down with a few of them and explained how they can use
headings and tables to find what they wanted instantly, then they were
somewhat impressed and more receptive to my design recommendations.
Of course I have started a discussion with the person in question, and
fortunately this situation is easy to resolve, but it makes me wonder
how we do this here, with such diverse group of users and systems and
A.T. training.
It seems to be extremely important that the end users can take
advantage of the work we are doing, especially now that we are looking
at more complex issues such as web applications and focus management,
as underlined in recent discussions on this list.
Cheers
-B

On 4/11/12, Jennifer Sutton < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> This article seems to be picking up steam in circulation. I
> recommend that readers keep in mind that it came out a number of
> years ago like 2002 or 2003.
>
> The article reads, in part:
> "Between November 2002 and February 2003, we observed and listened to
> 16 blind users as they worked with Web sites using assistive devices
> that read the screen to them (screen readers)."
>
>
> No NVDA, no VO . . .
> And hasn't the Web changed? And many new versions of screen readers
> since then?
>
> It may be useful/thought-provoking, but dates on this kind of
> information/research matter, even if they are not always easy to notice.
>
> Jennifer
>
> At 12:29 PM 4/11/2012, you wrote:
>>I generally only use Twitter to distribute this kind of info, rather
>>than overload the list, but I find this article and study very
>>interesting, especially in that it provides tips and ideas not just
>>for designers but also for SR vendors.
>
>
>>http://www.redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html
>>>>>>>
> > > >