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From: Hoffman, David
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2003 6:14AM
Subject: RE: Do screen readers read hidden text?
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Hi Alastair,

The bottom line is that media="all" and media="screen" are not yet supported
so they are not current options. So the question becomes, what is the best
solution with the tools that are available now? The goals should be as
follows:

* Ensure that hidden text that is for programmatic purposes or that is
deactivated user content (and therefore is not intended for users) is not
spoken by JAWS, just as it is not displayed on the screen. This text is not
comments. And it is not intended for any users. The information may be
hidden in inline styles or style sheets.

* Provide a means of supplementing label text and link text with additional
information that does not display on the screen, but is read by the screen
reader. Incidentally, both of these things could be accomplished by using a
title attribute to supercede the label / link text.

Any ideas regarding how to accomplish this using currently supported
techniques?

Take care,
David

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2003 7:04AM
Subject: RE: Do screen readers read hidden text?
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Hi David,

> The bottom line is that media="all" and media="screen" are not yet supported.
Well, I'm not so sure about that. They are supported by the vast majority of browsers in use, and especially by those using screen readers (who need to use Windows & Internet Exporer to use a screen reader on the web).

What I don't know is if Internet Explorer gives screen readers the necessary hooks to use that information.

> * Ensure that hidden text that is for programmatic purposes or that is
> deactivated user content (and therefore is not intended for users) [snipped]
> The information may be hidden in inline styles or style sheets.

Are these things problems at the moment? It isn't something I've noticed people complaining about. Surely, (subject to some test cases?) the current methods for hiding these types of content work now?

If they do currently work, would changing Jaws to apply @import CSS rules help?
If your going to update to include @import rules, would it do any harm to make an adjustment to *not* apply style sheets with the media attribute of screen? (Assuming that the hooks are there.)

> * Provide a means of supplementing label text and link text with additional
> information that does not display on the screen, but is read by the screen
> reader. Incidentally, both of these things could be accomplished by using a
> title attribute to supercede the label / link text.
I'd agree with using the title attribute to add supplimentary information, I'm not sure what the other method you mentioned is?

Oh, and I like Tom's method for skip links, the best of both worlds! (Once I've tested it in a Mac anyway ;) Perhaps that could also be used to show access keys?

-Alastair


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