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RE: Numbers and JAWS

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Nov 4, 2003 5:52AM

Todd,

One of the things I learned first about accessibility is the relationship
between the user agent and the content. You are providing content through a
web site or application. Sometimes, how the user agent (such as a browser
or screen reader) presents the content just exactly as you want it to do.
However, other times it does not. That can be due to a bug in how the user
agent interprets the content or it can be a problem with how the content was
created.

However, user agents (like screen readers) are highly configurable. Because
of that, what you might hear testing with a screen reader or what you might
hear when someone else is using the screen reader will not necessarily be
the same as what the customers will hear.

I think the key here is that the numbers and the dollar sign can be accessed
by the screen reader and presented to the user. In this case, however, the
content that is presented is entirely controlled by the user's user agent.

Of course, it appears that you are already trying to figure out the
difference between what the web site needs to provide and what the assistive
technology controls.

Another step in the process is beginning to understand the user's actual
experience. That usually comes when you have a product or a prototype which
you can have the user's perform tasks on while you observe.

Tim
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