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From: Joel Hickman
Date: Thu, Apr 19 2007 3:10PM
Subject: Re: WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 25, Issue 12
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I think that the problem is that most screen readers (that I know of) rely
on technology that is rapidly becoming obsolete. They depend upon parsing
the source of the page (that arrives as the http response from the server)
rather than attempting to dynamically navigate the DOM which may be modified
via DHTML. This means dynamic modifications within a page performed by the
client (browser) are not picked up.

Assuming you can require Javascript (not usually a valid assumption) then I
believe that a dynamic solution that causes a new window to pop up may be
visible to the screen reader. The easiest to use would probably be the
Javascript alert function. Here is an example embedded in a button:

<button name='alrt' value='Send Alert' style='button' onclick="alert('This
is an error message.')">Send Alert</button>

Now, in a real application, you would probably use some other event such as
onchange rather than onclick, and rather than calling alert directly, you
would call a function that performed error checking and called alert if an
error was found.

A discussion on the accessibility of alert:

http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_message.php?id=1072

Joel

From: smithj7
Date: Sat, Apr 21 2007 7:10AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 25, Issue 12
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I know that the makers of JAWS, for instance, are constantly updating to
keep up with technology. I heard the new version of JAWS is addressing
issues with DOM.

I see the problem being at least twofold: high cost of speech access
software and lack of specialized update training.

I work for an agency serving the blind. We provide users with an intial
licenses with I think two updates. Most companies are not paying for
updated licenses. Many customers don't realize the need for updated
licenses.

Many companies provide on-going computer training for sighted employees.
Most companies do not provide the on-going training for staff using
speech. They and their employees may not know that this is needed. We
usually get notified when the person is about to or lost their job.

This problem becomes even worst for the people that are using computers
in a home envirnment. People using speech don't just need to keep
computers updated but their speech software update, which is expensive.
Then they need to know how to use it with the new technology.

From: tedd
Date: Sun, Apr 22 2007 7:20AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 25, Issue 12
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At 9:03 AM -0400 4/21/07, smithj7 wrote:
>I know that the makers of JAWS, for instance, are constantly updating to
>keep up with technology. I heard the new version of JAWS is addressing
>issues with DOM.
>
>I see the problem being at least twofold: high cost of speech access
>software ...

I don't really see that. There are free speech-software routines available.

A few years ago I wrote a "blind browser" for the Mac. You simply
gave it a url and it would speak the text it found after ripping out
all the html. If one man can do this in a short time, then I don't
really see the problems/expense people have with using speech
software.

The problems with screen readers is reading the screen and organizing
the content in a way that means something. That seems to me to be a
hard way to go about all of this. I still think that the content of a
web site can be found in the text it contains and not the image it
projects, but much sharper minds than mine are at work here.

Cheers,

tedd

PS: What's with the subject line here anyway?
--
-------
http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com

From: ********
Date: Mon, Apr 23 2007 6:10AM
Subject: Re: WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 25, Issue 12
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Most of the speech users I know are students or employees. They do much more than "read" a page. However, I believe that I'd love to know more about free software for our older group. Many in this group like to keep in touch with their children using email and do some on-line banking. Most of the computers are not Macs.