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Re: Activating controls with hidden accessible names using speech recognition

for

From: Robert Fentress
Date: Feb 10, 2016 7:15AM

All good points. However, I can hear the person whose site I'm
evaluating saying something like, "We'll, my application is very
complex and making these things into icons allows me to fit more
functionality into a limited space, thus making it so users do not
have to spend a lot of time rooting through separate pages to get to
the functionality they need. The icons are more easily recognizable
at a glance than text labels would be and thus reduce the cognitive
load, once you are familiar with what they mean."

I like the idea of having a way of enabling text labels if desired.
However, I have a hard time imagining how that could happen without a
major interface redesign at this point.

Oh well, I guess I just need to make them aware of the issues and
provide possible solutions. It's up to them figure out how (or if)
they can implement them given their resources.

There is also the question of at what point this becomes a user agent
responsibility. I mean, the information is there and I'd argue speech
control software should provide the option to make it available
visually. If every label must be visible to everyone all the time,
what is the point of things like aria-label and chained ids for
aria-labelledby?

On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 9:38 AM, Jonathan Avila
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Robert, these are important considerations that I discuss in a blog article on the topic titled Considerations for Testing with Speech Recognition Software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking that I authored in 2014 http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/considerations-testing-speech-recognition-software-dragon-naturally-speaking/
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 703.637.8957 (o)
> Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Robert Fentress
> Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2016 4:24 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: [WebAIM] Activating controls with hidden accessible names using speech recognition
>
> Hi, all.
>
> I'm curious about the accessibility for speech recognition software users of controls whose accessible name is not visible. One example is graphical buttons or links. Using Dragon, one could say "click button" and be shown selection boxes for all buttons on the screen, allowing you to choose the one you wanted. However, that seems like an added burden when, if the name was visible, you could simply say its name to click it. I only have access to Dragon 12.5, so I don't know if they've come up with better solutions for situations like this in later versions, but I'm wondering if having an option to display hidden labels would assist users of this assistive technology.
>
> Using graphical controls can be a way of making things less cluttered and easier to grasp perhaps, but it seems to make things more difficult than it should be for those using voice control.
>
> Also, I'm wondering if it is recommended practice to try to avoid having controls whose accessible name doesn't match what appears visually to be its name. For instance, visibly, it might say "read more", but its hidden name might be set to "read full entry for topic 1" using aria-label to disambiguate things for screen reader users.
> In this instance, I could see a Dragon user saying "click read more"
> and being confused when nothing happens.
>
> Perhaps these are just examples of trade-offs where you need to use your best judgement, but I wonder if there are recommendations or best practices for things like this. You wouldn't ding someone for not having visible labels or having visible labels that are different than hidden labels, would you?
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Rob
> > > > > > > --
Robert Fentress
Senior Accessibility Solutions Designer
540.231.1255

Technology-enhanced Learning & Online Strategies
Assistive Technologies
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