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Re: Web development; How to identify if a screen reader is in use

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: May 12, 2017 6:34PM

It is a fact that we have too little data on how many people with
disabilities use our sites and apps.
I wonder if it is the technical challenges that discourage us from
trying to find out, or if we are worried that the actual number of
people with disabilities who use our site is a lot less than we try to
indicate using general population percentages.
It shouldn't matter, but it would still be good to have numbers,
especially numbers that create a solid accessibility business case.
The dangerous thing about measuring only the number of people with
disabilities (if such a thing is possible) who use our site is that we
are not considering people who may simply have given up on using
technology, and that could be lured back to the site with more
options, better assistive technology and a more accessible web.
It's like tracking customer complaints, almost 80% of customers leave
sites they are not happy with and less than 10% of unhappy customers
actually bother to send in a complaint.
So if you start using customer complaint as a measure of how many
customers would benefit from fixing a particular website issue, you
might be under estimating that number by a factor of 10.




On 5/12/17, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Are you suggesting then that any time a person is using the keyboard only,
>> that there is likely a screen reader involved there somewhere?
>
> No I am not. In fact I didn't say keyboard -- I said navigation with a
> screen reader. I can't go into details but I'd say that when a screen
> reader is active there are clues related to events and interactions, etc.
> that can accurately predict this. Similarly when only the keyboard is used
> or when speech recognition is used there are certain patterns of events and
> interactions that provide clues. For high contrast and zoom there are
> similar clues when you insert content and you see the aspects of that
> content changed by the user's browser settings.
>
>> I think we both know that's not always true - people with mobility issues
>> will also likely be using a keyboard only (or speech input), and / or
>> power-users who have a preference for the keyboard.
>
> And this is important information as well. Seeing power users use
> keystrokes can be motivation to add or tweak settings -- and it has nothing
> to do with disability.
>
>> WCAG says that all content must be accessible to the keyboard for that
>> specific reason, so meeting that requirement ensures that the content
>> remains accessible to all of those users.
>
> I agree that all content should be fully keyboard accessible. But there is
> more to keyboard access than simply being keyboard accessible. The
> discussions currently surrounding single key shortcuts and there benefits or
> detriment to speech recognition users is one example.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
> Of John Foliot
> Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 3:32 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Web development; How to identify if a screen reader is
> in use
>
> Hi Jon
>
>> but rather looking at the user's behavior on the site to predict
>> whether
> the user is navigating with a screen reader.
>
> Are you suggesting then that any time a person is using the keyboard only,
> that there is likely a screen reader involved there somewhere? I think we
> both know that's not always true - people with mobility issues will also
> likely be using a keyboard only (or speech input), and / or power-users who
> have a preference for the keyboard. It is unclear to me how you would know
> the difference between those users, and a user dependent on a screen reader
> simply by tracking their progress and interaction through a site. WCAG says
> that all content must be accessible to the keyboard for that specific
> reason, so meeting that requirement ensures that the content remains
> accessible to all of those users.
>
>> I never suggested that the data should be modified or redirected for a
> screen reader user.
>
> That is correct, you have not.
>
> However, I've been hearing this request/argument for many, many years now,
> and more often than not, from non-Accessibility SMES, who *explicitly* want
> to use this information to modify what is being delivered (think Media
> Queries), so while *YOU* haven't suggest that, many have. This is a problem,
> and has been for at least a decade, when Flash allowed for the ActionScript
> *Accessibility.isActivemethod* (https://www.paciellogroup.com/
> blog/2008/04/developer-beware-using-flash-to-detect-screen-readers/)
>
>> for example, we need better data
>
> Agreed 101%!
>
> But that data also needs to be accurate, and I will continue to assert that
> capturing and analyzing user-interaction data is not very accurate in terms
> of what tools any specific user (or groups of users) is using. There may
> indeed be other useful observations derived from that analysis, but
> returning to the Subject Line of this thread ("Web development; How to
> identify if a screen reader is in use"), attempting to determine if a screen
> reader is present and being used is, to me at least, a fools errand, as
> those software tools are expressly attempting to "cloak" their presence for
> the aforementioned security and privacy considerations.
>
> JF
>
> --
> John Foliot
> Principal Accessibility Strategist
> Deque Systems Inc.
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Elizabeth Pyatt < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Hello:
>>
>> The discussion about detecting screen reader use is very enlightening
>> to me and I agree that it could be harmful.
>>
>> Clearly, it would be unethical to collect that data tied to a
>> specific individual. I am also against using any sniffing technique to
>> direct a user to a 'text-only- site. In fact, using detection to push
>> mobile devices to a less functional site is equally bad.
>>
>> However, it should be noted that many reports such as Google Analytics
>> provide aggregate reports on detected browsers/OS combinations. This
>> can help webmasters make decisions such as whether it is viable to
>> enable a particular new web technology (e.g. new CSS attributes,
>> plugins, tags,
>> etc) and how much effort must be made to support older systems. Back
>> in the 2000s, when use of Netscape 4.7 finally dropped off, I jumped
>> for joy because I could finally get rid of many FONT tags and use CSS.
>>
>> An example applicable to the screen reader community is when
>> particular ARIA attributes are supported or not supported by different
>> screenreader platforms. We may know that some older screenreader
>> versions don't quite fully support all the ARIA specifications, but
>> knowing generally which versions (in an aggregate sense) might be
>> used can help determine what new technologies can be fully implemented.
>>
>> Based on the responses I have seen, I would not recommend implementing
>> a sniffing algorithm at this time at this time. But I did want to
>> point out why someone might want to do that for legitimate reasons
>> that could benefit the community.
>>
>> Best
>> Elizabeth
>>
>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->> Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
>> Accessibility IT Consultant
>> Teaching and Learning with Technology
>> Penn State University
>> <EMAIL REMOVED> , (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)
>>
>> The 300 Building
>> 304 West College Avenue
>> University Park, PA 16801
>> http://accessibility.psu.edu
>>
>> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> >>
>
>
>
>
> > > http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > > >


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