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Thread: Detection of adaptive technology
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From: Mackenzie, Hamish
Date: Thu, Oct 09 2008 5:00PM
Subject: Detection of adaptive technology
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Hi all
I was just chatting with a colleague about the analytics package we are
using for our web site and we thought it would be a great stat if we
had some idea of the numbers of visitors to our site that are using AT
such as screen readers. I am sure I have visited some web sites that
were aware I was running a screen reader, not that I can think of an
example right now, and I was just wondering if any of you had any
experience of whether this is possible or not.
cheers
Hamish
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From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Fri, Oct 10 2008 2:10AM
Subject: Re: Detection of adaptive technology
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Mackenzie, Hamish wrote:
> I was just chatting with a colleague about the analytics package we are
> using for our web site and we thought it would be a great stat if we
> had some idea of the numbers of visitors to our site that are using AT
> such as screen readers. I am sure I have visited some web sites that
> were aware I was running a screen reader, not that I can think of an
> example right now, and I was just wondering if any of you had any
> experience of whether this is possible or not.
On Windows systems with Flash installed and enabled you can detect the
use of Flash's Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) interface:
http://osflash.org/flashaid
Users of MSAA include many Windows AT, including screen readers such as
JAWS, Window-Eyes, HAL, screen magnifiers such as ZoomText, and speech
recognition like Dragon Naturally Speaking. But the users also includes
automation software, such as is employed for testing software, so there
could be false positives. There would also be false negatives as not all
Windows assistive technology uses MSAA, for example the Fire Vox
self-voicing extension for Firefox, Opera Voice, the Hawking Toolbar for
Firefox, and on-screen keyboards. Equally importantly, there would be a
large category of unknowns including:
* Windows AT users with Flash disabled (a substantial contingent, given
the accessibility problems presented by typical Flash content).
* AT users not using Windows (e.g. GNOME Orca and Apple VoiceOver or
MacSpeech Dictate users).
The sites you visited that appeared to be aware you were running a
screen reader might have been using this technique. Or, they might have
been styling content directed at screen reader users off-screen with CSS
or putting it into the ALT attribute of a pixel GIF, so that mostly only
screen reader users would consume it.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Fri, Oct 10 2008 8:20AM
Subject: Re: Detection of adaptive technology
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Hi Hamish,
I'm with Winston Churchill when he said "the only statistics you can
believe are the ones you falsified yourself".
However, you may find this article useful. Steve Faulkner wrote a piece
on detecting AT, the current methods and limitations [1]
> we thought it would be a great stat if we
> had some idea of the numbers of visitors to our site that are using AT
> such as screen readers.
Thats one metric that could come back to bite you. In particular because
in comparison with normal (sic) use it will probably be quite low. Stats
like that, in particular if they are low, could then be used as a
rational for /not/ implementing an accessible solution in the first
place due to its relative standing when compared to non-AT users.
Cheers
Josh
[1] http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=61
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