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Re: Quick Poll for JAWs users: Verbosity and Punctuation settings.

for

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Aug 13, 2012 2:55PM

John,
Unless an AT user is tech-savvy and is scrutinizing the markup,
ordinarily he will not be able to say ( or be bothered by) what text
on the page is off-screen. He will browse the content and UI elements
like he does anywhere else on the page.
(The off-screen text I suppose is used correctly, does not duplicate
content and helps the user).
So will you say, one should not use parenthesis / hyphens etc. even in
visible text on the page because screen reader users have turned them
off?
I suppose not.
That's what I mean by use them normally even within off-screen text.
They will notice them if they are going to notice them elsewhere on
the page or if they have turned them off, so be it.

If the visible linked text is "Annual Report 2012-13" and just for
argument sake, one decides to convey that it opens in a new window, I
suppose one would want some sort of a separator there hyphen or
parenthesis... regardless of whether the text is visible or not.
So it should be "Annual Report 2012-13 (opens new window)" for instance.
Now if one wishes to keep that notification off-screen, fine, no problems.
Normal editorial rules apply.
Sailesh


On 8/13/12, John Foliot < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sailesh Panchang wrote:
>>
>> John,
>> Verbosity and punctuation are user preferences and should not be a
>> concern. Users may set different preferences from time to time or from
>> application to application or from task to task.
>
> I am aware of this, which is why I posed the question in the first place -
> I
> am trying to get a sense of what user preferences are when surfing the web.
>
>
>> And some do not like to change them.
>> What is important is that visible text and off-screen text should not
>> run together / appear concatenated for AT users.
>
> Agreed, to the point that we will inject a non-breaking space - &nbsp; - at
> the start of hidden text to specifically avoid that problem in at least one
> combination of browser and screen reader.
>
>
>> One should use space / hyphens / parenthesis as one would use them
>> normally to serve as separators.
>
> Except - and this is why I am asking - it is appearing that virtually no
> user is benefitting from the use of parenthesis in hidden text. In my
> limited testing, and based on this quick poll results, the only time that
> hidden text (that is, text hidden from visual view, intended exclusively
> for
> screen reader users) actually enunciates the opening and closing
> parenthesis
> is under the edge case of the Read Everything verbosity settings, that is
> rarely used when surfing the web.
>
> To keep this in context, the question is whether or not an EDITORIAL
> standard for this type of text should MANDATE the use of parenthesis. The
> feedback I have received to date suggests not, but I am still open to
> reasons why that should change. If there is no practical benefit - and I
> mean practical - then we can leave this as an editorial choice.
>
> Cheers!
>
> JF
>
>
>