E-mail List Archives

Search E-mail List Archives for

Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)

From: Pat Reynolds
Date: Sun, Jul 05 2020 9:19AM
Subject: Screen reader accessibility to Uncertain Character Format
No previous message | Next message →

Hello all,

I work for FreeUKGenealogy, a UK charity that is transcribing, and
making freely available to all, historic documents of interest to
family historians.

One of the problems our volunteer transcribers have is that
handwriting in the past can be a bit dodgy, and the documents can be
affected by damp, rodents, etc, all making for some characters and
words to become illegible.

To give our users the best chance of understanding what the
transcriber is seeing, we use something called 'uncertain character
format' (UCF) - the following link will take you to the instructions
for transcribers -
https://www.freereg.org.uk/cms/information-for-transcribers/dealing-with-uncertainty#ucf
The method uses square brackets, underscores, and asterisks to convey
what might be there. And the following link will take you to the help
page for users https://www.freereg.org.uk/cms/help#ucf.

Here is an example of a search result where the record found which has
the UCF displayed:
https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/5f01ef1cf493fdd3707c113e?locale=en

I'm assuming that those who use screen readers will find this
difficult to use, and wonder how we can make this as accessible as
possible for you. Since these users are dependent on the
transcriptions, which are sometimes less complete or of poorer quality
on sites that allow the user to see the original, it is important to
us that we get this right.

With thanks for any help you can give, and best wishes,

Pat



--
- -
Dr Pat Reynolds
Executive Director


A Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and
Wales, number 1167484
VAT registration: 233 0105 70

Join us on social:
https://www.facebook.com/FreeUKGEN
Please read our Privacy Notice for information on how we will protect
and use your data.



+44 1723 362616 +44 7943 145387
Westwood House,Westwood, Scarborough YO11 2JD, UK

From: Mallory
Date: Sun, Jul 05 2020 12:32PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader accessibility to Uncertain Character Format
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi,
> I'm assuming that those who use screen readers will find this
> difficult to use, and wonder how we can make this as accessible as
> possible for you.

Looking at that record, I would be confused as well. I expected to find a legend somewhere (perhaps as a link so the explanation is at a single canonical place) telling me what the symbols are representing.

Since screen readers can read by character, I would go so far as to say that, once the system has been sufficiently explained, it would be understood the same for users of a screen reader as users without.

cheers,
_mallory

On Sun, Jul 5, 2020, at 5:19 PM, Pat Reynolds wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I work for FreeUKGenealogy, a UK charity that is transcribing, and
> making freely available to all, historic documents of interest to
> family historians.
>
> One of the problems our volunteer transcribers have is that
> handwriting in the past can be a bit dodgy, and the documents can be
> affected by damp, rodents, etc, all making for some characters and
> words to become illegible.
>
> To give our users the best chance of understanding what the
> transcriber is seeing, we use something called 'uncertain character
> format' (UCF) - the following link will take you to the instructions
> for transcribers -
> https://www.freereg.org.uk/cms/information-for-transcribers/dealing-with-uncertainty#ucf
> The method uses square brackets, underscores, and asterisks to convey
> what might be there. And the following link will take you to the help
> page for users https://www.freereg.org.uk/cms/help#ucf.
>
> Here is an example of a search result where the record found which has
> the UCF displayed:
> https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/5f01ef1cf493fdd3707c113e?locale=en
>
> I'm assuming that those who use screen readers will find this
> difficult to use, and wonder how we can make this as accessible as
> possible for you. Since these users are dependent on the
> transcriptions, which are sometimes less complete or of poorer quality
> on sites that allow the user to see the original, it is important to
> us that we get this right.
>
> With thanks for any help you can give, and best wishes,
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> --
> - -
> Dr Pat Reynolds
> Executive Director
>
>
> A Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and
> Wales, number 1167484
> VAT registration: 233 0105 70
>
> Join us on social:
> https://www.facebook.com/FreeUKGEN
> Please read our Privacy Notice for information on how we will protect
> and use your data.
>
>
>
> +44 1723 362616 +44 7943 145387
> Westwood House,Westwood, Scarborough YO11 2JD, UK
> > > > >

From: glen walker
Date: Sun, Jul 05 2020 12:46PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader accessibility to Uncertain Character Format
← Previous message | Next message →

As far as an equitable experience, it sounds like sighted and low-vision
users will have the same experience. A sighted user will see the UCF
results and may have to refer back to the help page to understand the
special characters (if they're new at looking at the results). A screen
reader user can listen to the results one character at a time so can hear
the same wildcard type results and may also have to refer back to the help
page occasionally. People with computer science backgrounds or familiar
with regular expressions might catch on quickly.

Many screen readers won't read the special characters by default but it's
easy to change that setting or to navigate letter by letter to hear all the
characters. For example, in your sample, "Elizabeth [H_]ICA[N,R]D" is read
as "Elizabeth H I C A N R D", with the last part read as individual
letters. The brackets, underscores, and commas are not read. If I use the
right arrow key to navigate with the screen reader, I hear "Elizabeth"
spelled out and then I hear:

- left bracket
- H
- line
- right bracket
- I
- C
- A
- left bracket
- N
- comma
- R
- right bracket
- D

I'm not sure why the underscore is read as "line" but in any event I can
tell there are special characters. I can also hear capital letters with a
higher pitch than lower case letters so can tell the difference there too.
Different screen readers might read it differently.

I think the only change I would make to your sample page would be to have a
hidden hint that UCF is present in the results. A sighted user gets that
information quickly by seeing the brackets and such. A screen reader user
might hear a similar hint because they get letters read out individually
but if the letters actually spell a word, the word might be pronounced
instead of the letters, so having a hint might be helpful. For example,
hearing something like "Elizabeth H I C A N R D (contains uncertain
characters)".

As a side topic, even though help on the UCF is not too far away - I can
click on "help" then "interpret the symbols we use in names and dates" - it
might be nice to have a link to that help directly. You could even have a
link next to the UCF. But I'd have to see a results page that contains a
lot of UCF to decide if all those links would be too "noisy".

You could potentially have something that's helpful for both sighted and
low vision users such as a "contains ucf" link after the text. As a user,
it might be nice to have the UCF help directly on the results page but if
the help on UCF is extensive, that might be too much to repeat on the
results page and link to the help would be ok.

And as another side topic, the"Printable Format" table is nice that it uses
real <table> markup. Your column headers are good but it would be helpful
to have row headers too (<th scope="row"). You could make the first column
(person's name) be the row header. But if the name contains UCF, that
might make for a confusing row header.

From: Murphy, Sean
Date: Sun, Jul 05 2020 6:28PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader accessibility to Uncertain Character Format
← Previous message | No next message

My suggestion is to undertake a UX PWD Testing with Screen reader users with a range of screen readers on different platforms. As this will give you the best insights into if there is truly any changes required.

When I had a look at the search and I am a screen reader user. I wouldn't change anything. As the user can read by char to announce the characters. This is my point of view and others who use this AT will have a different view. As this is very specialise information. You really need users of screen readers to give you their feedback outside of this group.





Sean Murphy | Accessibility expert/lead
Digital Accessibility manager
Telstra Digital Channels | Digital Systems
Mobile: 0405 129 739 | Desk: (02) 9866-7917

www.telstra.com

This email may contain confidential information.
If I've sent it to you by accident, please delete it immediately