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From: Annie Belanger
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2005 3:31PM
Subject: Speech Synthesizer or Screen Readers rendering of quotes
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Greetings everyone!

I am writing a document on accessibility guidelines for my department. In many
of the examples, I have put code, visual rendering, and speech synthesizer
rendering. I am writing the examples for BLOCKQUOTE and Q. I have not found any
information on how a speech synthesizer might render these to the user.

Anyone have a clue?

Annie Belanger

From: Michael Moore
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2005 4:26PM
Subject: Re: Speech Synthesizer or Screen Readers rendering of quotes
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As my old college CS professor used to say, try it. HPR is available
for under $200 and the demo version of jaws is free and will run for 40
min at a time.

Mike

Annie Belanger wrote:
> Greetings everyone!
>
> I am writing a document on accessibility guidelines for my department. In many
> of the examples, I have put code, visual rendering, and speech synthesizer
> rendering. I am writing the examples for BLOCKQUOTE and Q. I have not found any
> information on how a speech synthesizer might render these to the user.
>
> Anyone have a clue?
>
> Annie Belanger
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2005 3:35PM
Subject: Re: Speech Synthesizer or Screen Readers rendering of quotes
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Hello:

I assume you mean a screen reader, rather than a speech synthesizer? It
makes a difference, I think. And which screen reader may also make a
difference.

Perhaps I am the only one who grows ever more concerned about what seems to
me to be screen-reader-centric design for the Web. Just because one screen
reader, with one set of default settings does whatever it does with a given
page does not mean that ALL screen readers will behave in the same
way. I'd encourage you to make this clear to your site visitors.

No doubt, I am preaching to the choir, here, but I do see this focus on
testing with one and only one screen reader (by, I'm afraid to say, sighted
people who may never have seen a blind person surf). Sure, use a screen
reader to double check things, but I rarely see sighted people who
understand how a blind person surfs. And I'm not even including sighted
people who get hung up on the sound of the synthesizer in the first place.

Apologies for the ranty quality of this message, but screen-reader-centric
design really disturbs me because I see a lot of mis-information in
circulation, generally (not specifically on this listserv).

As for your particular question, with MY particular screen reader, I can
choose what it does with blockquotes. The default setting is NOT to inform
me of their existence. This choice makes sense to me, in order to cut down
on needless chatter. I can choose to know when/if I need to know that
there's a blockquote, and often, whether or not something is quoted text is
apparent via context.

I hope my opinions prove helpful, or if not helpful, perhaps, at least,
food for thought.

Best,
Jennifer

At 12:35 PM 6/10/2005, you wrote:
>Greetings everyone!
>
>I am writing a document on accessibility guidelines for my department. In many
>of the examples, I have put code, visual rendering, and speech synthesizer
>rendering. I am writing the examples for BLOCKQUOTE and Q. I have not
>found any
>information on how a speech synthesizer might render these to the user.
>
>Anyone have a clue?
>
>Annie Belanger

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2005 3:35PM
Subject: Re: Speech Synthesizer or Screen Readers rendering of quotes
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Hello again:

And the demo version of Window-Eyes is also available. If you're going to
try one, I'd recommend HPR since it gives a visual rendering of pages, and
there's less of a learning curve.

And then, what about users of Lynx with speech? And Dolphin's Hal?

I'm overstating the case to make my point. I'm very glad to see HPR
mentioned since I think it's better for sighted folks who want to get a
sense of surfing with a screen reader, but that's just my experience.

Best,
Jennifer

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2005 3:36PM
Subject: RE: Speech Synthesizer or Screen Readers rendering of quotes
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I'm making an inference based on your email. If you are focusing on this
in a printed document, then you may wish to consider the Firefox browser
with a specific extension called "Fangs"
(http://www.standards-schmandards.com/index.php?show/fangs). I find it
useful in capturing the text equivalent of simulation of a screen
reader. Note that I usually 'capture' it with Fangs, then read the text
while I browse with a real screen reader.

Also, although not your question, you indicated this was for creating an
accessibility guidelines document. If you only state one thing, consider
proper (X)HTML coding allows for better accessibility, as the tools that
function and assist us rely on those standards to be present to
manipulate content. Validation against standards isn't the be-all and
end-all, but it goes a long way to solving the "works for me" problem.
Where possible I always encourage developers and *designers* validate
their code. I'd rather they learn when to ignore errors from an attempt
at valid code rather than suggest they don't validate at all or use
manual inspection only.

As to your real question, there are plenty of synthesizers available for
free if you search for them. If you are using MS Windows you can go to
Microsoft's page and search to find their free version. What usually
works best is if you already have a defined standard set of assistive
technology or specific browsers you expect your user audience to have,
is to test using those applications.

Regards,


Norman Robinson