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

for

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Aug 14, 2012 3:17PM

The question is, "should it be mandated from an editorial perspective that
all off-screen text MUST be placed in parenthesis?"

I too say No ... one simply does not use parenthesis for the heck of it.
For instance if the link was
<a ...>Read more<span class="offscreen">about closing ceremony London
Olympics 2012</span></a>
then one does not need parenthesis.
Simply picture the complete text on the screen or a printed page. If
it is appropriate to use a hyphen or parenthesis for separation, then
do so.
It does not matter if the user is sighted / blind / uses AT with
reading options configured to suit his style.
Sailesh



On 8/13/12, John Foliot < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Sailesh Panchang wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
> So you have hit on a plausible use-case, as yes, we do something similar.
> HOWEVER, with or without the parenthesis the screen readers I've tested -
> with normal or expert verbosity settings - do not pause or announce that
> the
> parenthesis are there. Since this is the case, is there a need to MANDATE
> their use, as neither the screen-reader user nor a sighted person will see
> them? Include them, don't include them, sure, but that is not the question.
> The question is, "should it be mandated from an editorial perspective that
> all off-screen text MUST be placed in parenthesis?"
>
> The emergent answer is no.
>
> JF
>
>