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Re: PDF forms: all form field-related information read out twice

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jun 24, 2014 6:09AM

[Olaf wrote] . Also please keep in mind that when thinking of assistive
technology not to always only think of screen readers.

Agreed, we had a vendor try to artifact this text which made me
uncomfortable as that seems like a PDF/UA violation in addition to an AT
issue. In testing I found that ZoomText's text-to-speech tools did not
read the artifact text and this would be an issue as you mention.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Olaf Drümmer
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2014 4:36 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF forms: all form field-related information read
out twice

Hello Nasrin,

On 24 Jun 2014, at 10:00, Nasrin Saef < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Currently, the text in the
> document is tagged, and the form fields have tool tips - both are read
out.

this is a matter of how assistive technology presents this.

The underlying problem is as follows:
- if a user steps through just the form fields, without reading the
content around a field, all the user might have access to is the 'tool
tip'; I guess this would be considered useful and appropriate from an
accessibility point of view
- if a user sequentially reads the document, she will read the usual
content - the text before and after form fields, which usually contains
enough information to understand the form fields - but possibly will also
be presented the tool tip. The presentation of the tool tip nevertheless
is a function of the assistive technology used. If that assistive
technology happens to be a screen reader for blind or low vision users,
this can indeed be annoying, though most screen readers also have features
to skip pieces of information being presented. A good screen reader would
also have an option to skip tool tips when reading in sequential mode. One
could think of other types of assistive technology, e.g. for dyslexic
users, where current text might be displayed selectively in small portions
(to visually read), and upon encountering a form field, the tool tip might
read out loud in addition to the visual display.

All in all I'd say that duplication of information in regular page content
and - in this case - in the tool tips for form fields is a good thing, and
it is up to the tool being used to do the right thing. Also please keep in
mind that when thinking of assistive technology not to always only think
of screen readers. Blind and low vision users are a relatively small
percentage of people with disabilities (in other words: there are lots of
people with different needs).

Olaf


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