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Thread: Screen reader question
Number of posts in this thread: 13 (In chronological order)
From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 3:10PM
Subject: Screen reader question
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Hi,
Would anyone know how to solve the following problem. We need screen readers to speak the following phrase, pausing at the commas (or other punctuation):
"Table 1, row 2, column 3"
Currently, the phrase is being spoken as follows:
"Table, 1 row, 2 columns, 3"
..because the pauses are occurring in the wrong place, and altering the meaning of the phrase.
Would anyone know how to force a pause in a middle of text? The solution we are looking for should not be specific to a given screen reader/version.
Thanks.
Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com
From: Robinson, Norman B
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 3:20PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Vlad,
1. Do you have a source file/table you can provide that you are
using?
2. I take it you want this to read with assistive technology,
not that you simply wish to generate an audio file.
Regards,
Norman B. Robinson
From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 3:40PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Hi Norman,
>I take it you want this to read with assistive technology
Yes, we are a tool vendor and we are passing this text to Microsoft Active Accessibility API. But the problem can be reproduce simply by reading this text in a Notepad file. The length of the phrase seems to affect this as well. The screen reader seems to read this okay:
Row 2, Column 3
But it has problems with:
Layout table 1, Rows 2, Columns 3
I also noticed that words in plural form, such as "rows" as opposed to "row", also affects where the pause is placed.
Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com
-------- Original Message --------
From: Robinson, Norman B
Date: 2007-12-12 5:09 PM
> Vlad,
>
> 1. Do you have a source file/table you can provide that you are
> using?
> 2. I take it you want this to read with assistive technology,
> not that you simply wish to generate an audio file.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Norman B. Robinson
>
>
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 3:50PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Would anyone know how to solve the following problem. We need screen readers to speak the following phrase, pausing at the commas (or other punctuation):
>
> "Table 1, row 2, column 3"
How about full stops or semicolons instead of commas?
P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
______________________________________________________________
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
______________________________________________________________
Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________
Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team
http://streetteam.webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________
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From: Robinson, Norman B
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 4:00PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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That is the information I was after: you are referencing a textual
sentence and not the behavior from an actual layout table.
In that case, there isn't much you can do, as each assistive technology
will use the accessibility API and the information passed differently.
It will also be spoken differently depending on the narration
software/engine itself.
I'd suggest rewording or rechunking your information. "The following
table is used for layout. It has two rows for Student A and Student B
and three columns, containing their first, second, and third grades for
the semester." or something similar.
And I'll close with a comment that if you are passing the words through
the API to simulate assistive technology - obtain the assistive
technologies and test instead. Sorry, it is just that I have no clue to
what you are doing - best of luck though!
Regards,
Norman B. Robinson
From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 4:10PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Is this text displayed on screen or is it hidden (off-screen perhaps) so
that only screen readers see it? I ask because you may get different results
if you use different capitalisation or use words instead of numbers.
There's no chance you will get it to read the same in all screen readers
regardless of vendor or version. They all make assumptions based on
heuristics but they don't make the same assumptions. Professional products
like JAWS tend to apply more 'intelligence' but cheap and free products tend
not to.
Steve
From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 4:20PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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On 12/12/07, XStandard Vlad Alexander < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Would anyone know how to force a pause in a middle of text? The solution
> we are looking for should not be specific to a given screen reader/version.
You usually should not attempt fixing the MANY reading issues that
screen readers have. Luckily, screen reader users are typically aware
of these and use various methods (such as reading character by
character or identifying punctuation) to make sense of information
that doesn't seem to be read correctly. Trying to hack them to work
the way we think they should is usually a bad idea and may result in
issues in other screen readers. My favorite was someone adding a text
image with alt of "You Ess Aye" to get the screen reader to pronounce
USA correctly.
It appears that it may be interpreting the text to be a list of items
(e.g., 1 - brush your teeth, 2 - comb your hair) and is forcing the
pause accordingly. You might try various space characters
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_(punctuation)#Table_of_spaces) in
place to see what the screen reader does or restructure the
presentation altogether, but again, I don't think it's something you
should worry about.
Jared
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 5:00PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Robinson, Norman B wrote:
> And I'll close with a comment that if you are passing the words through
> the API to simulate assistive technology - obtain the assistive
> technologies and test instead. Sorry, it is just that I have no clue to
> what you are doing - best of luck though!
I'm assuming that this relates to the way the XStandard plugin, when
viewing/editing content, passes information back to the screenreader's API.
P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
______________________________________________________________
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
______________________________________________________________
Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________
Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team
http://streetteam.webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________
To manage your subscription, visit http://list.webaim.org/
Address list messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Wed, Dec 12 2007 6:00PM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Thanks everyone.
> I'm assuming that this relates to the way the XStandard plugin,
> when viewing/editing content, passes information back to the
> screenreader's API.
Yes
> How about full stops or semicolons instead of commas?
No affect. We tried periods, extra spaces, semicolons and even parentheses. Window-Eyes tech support even suggested trying exclamation marks but that had no affect either.
> Is this text displayed on screen or is it hidden
> (off-screen perhaps) so that only screen readers see it?
Hidden. Think of an authoring tool like Microsoft Word. When the cursor enters the table for the first time, the screen reader would speak this:
"Data table: 1, rows: 5, columns: 3, row: 1, column: 1"
Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com
From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 3:40AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Jared Smith wrote:
> You usually should not attempt fixing the MANY reading issues that
> screen readers have. Luckily, screen reader users are typically aware
> of these and use various methods (such as reading character by
> character or identifying punctuation) to make sense of information
> that doesn't seem to be read correctly. Trying to hack them to work
> the way we think they should is usually a bad idea and may result in
> issues in other screen readers.
Jared is right and its an important point. If some element of a page (a
table etc) has been marked up correctly then the screen reader user can
tap into features already existing in their AT to interrogate the
element. For example there are commands like "Speak all" or the ability
to read content character by character that are often used when there is
confusing or ambiguity in the content, and many screen reader users will
do this. Most are used to AT output being "slightly off". Relying on
this kind of functionality is not even really only for power users and
is fairly common among more basic level users of screen readers.
If XStandard are putting in some kind of "see what your content will be
like to a screen reader user" feature and this will be useful, don't
worry *too* much about trying to simulate perfect output as it's not
perfect for the existing AT :-)
Cheers
Josh
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From: Léonie Watson
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 3:50AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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Vlad wrote:
"Would anyone know how to solve the following problem. We need screen readers to speak the following phrase, pausing at the commas (or other punctuation):
"Table 1, row 2, column 3""
Out of curiosity, which screen readers/TTS engines are you testing with? A rudimentary check with Window Eyes 5.0 and 6.0, as well as all major Jaws versions since 4.5, suggests no difficulty in reading the sentence correctly.
These aren't the only options of course, and the WE doesn't punctuate as clearly as Jaws, but the meaning seems to be conveyed. Perhaps it's familiarity with the cadences of different electronic speech systems that makes it seem understandable to a full time screen reader user. Either way, punctuating a sentence specifically for one type of access tech isn't adviseable, it'll almost certainly cause problems elsewhere.
Regards,
Léonie.
Which screen readers are you using to test this?
From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 5:20AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
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= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote on :
> Jared is right and its an important point. If some element of
> a page (a
> table etc) has been marked up correctly then the screen
> reader user can
> tap into features already existing in their AT to interrogate the
> element.
[...]
> If XStandard are putting in some kind of "see what your
> content will be
> like to a screen reader user" feature and this will be useful, don't
> worry *too* much about trying to simulate perfect output as it's not
> perfect for the existing AT :-)
Just to reiterate (at least from what I understood Vlad's request to be): this isn't about content in an existing HTML page, or offering a simulation feature...it's about the actual XStandard interface sending information of its content/editing area to screenreaders via MSAA (I'm assuming), so that screenreader users can work with the XStandard plugin directly.
P
From: Vlad Alexander (XStandard)
Date: Thu, Dec 13 2007 5:50AM
Subject: Re: Screen reader question
← Previous message | No next message
>Which screen readers are you using to test this?
Window-Eyes 5.5
>A rudimentary check with Window Eyes 5.0 and 6.0, ...,
>suggests no difficulty in reading the sentence correctly.
I wonder if the speech rate affects this - we have it set at the slowest rate.
In any case, I think I got an answer to my question - developers should not try to manipulate the screen reader, let end-uses manipulate it.
Thanks again.
Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com
-------- Original Message --------
From: L�onie Watson
Date: 2007-12-13 5:42 AM
> Vlad wrote:
>
> "Would anyone know how to solve the following problem. We need screen readers to speak the following phrase, pausing at the commas (or other punctuation):
>
> "Table 1, row 2, column 3""
>
> Out of curiosity, which screen readers/TTS engines are you testing with? A rudimentary check with Window Eyes 5.0 and 6.0, as well as all major Jaws versions since 4.5, suggests no difficulty in reading the sentence correctly.
>
> These aren't the only options of course, and the WE doesn't punctuate as clearly as Jaws, but the meaning seems to be conveyed. Perhaps it's familiarity with the cadences of different electronic speech systems that makes it seem understandable to a full time screen reader user. Either way, punctuating a sentence specifically for one type of access tech isn't adviseable, it'll almost certainly cause problems elsewhere.
>
>
> Regards,
> L�onie.
>
>
> Which screen readers are you using to test this?
>
>