Jaws testing
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Last night I was running a few sites through Jaws, something I haven't done for a long time and noted some strange/interesting things.
Firstly if a main menu used the pipe character to seperate links Jaws read out "vertical bar" which obviously became very annoying. To me it highlighted the importance of using css (border-right) rather than using keyboard characters for visual seperation of links.
Secondly where Jaws was reading out a long list of links it behaved like a human. By that I mean it sounded like it was running out of breath! Without any pauses the voice appeared to get lower and sounded more strained, has anyone else experienced this? Are there any tips for getting the reader to pause between links?
Thirdly I have the 40 minute trial version and was using Firefox. No matter what I did, for example insert and down arrow to read all, refreshed page, restarted browser, I couldn't get JAWS to read any further than the title and top nav. When I opened up IE there was no such problem. Again has anyone else experienced this?
Lastly, one thing I didn't get the chance to test was abbreviations. Say for example a logo had alt text which it could read as a word, for example "DOL", is there anyway to get it to read just the letters, that is "D pause O pause L"? I think I've read putting spaces in the alt text helps, can anyone confirm if this is the case?
Thanks!
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TaylorMade | @darrent71
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| Daz wrote: |
| Secondly where Jaws was reading out a long list of links it behaved like a human. By that I mean it sounded like it was running out of breath! Without any pauses the voice appeared to get lower and sounded more strained, has anyone else experienced this? Are there any tips for getting the reader to pause between links? |
I have experienced yes, and i'm semi-inclined to think of it is a device problem - something that we shouldn't really have to think about. But at a pinch - are the list items punctuated? That often makes a difference I find.
| Daz wrote: |
| Thirdly I have the 40 minute trial version and was using Firefox. No matter what I did, for example insert and down arrow to read all, refreshed page, restarted browser, I couldn't get JAWS to read any further than the title and top nav. When I opened up IE there was no such problem. Again has anyone else experienced this? |
Which versions of both are you using? afaik only JAWS 7 and Firefox 1.5 is properly supported.
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The links aren't list items, they're presented as subheadings.
I'm not sure what version of Firefox I have at home, may only be 1.4.
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TaylorMade | @darrent71
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| Daz wrote: |
| Last night I was running a few sites through Jaws, something I haven't done for a long time and noted some strange/interesting things.
Firstly if a main menu used the pipe character to seperate links Jaws read out "vertical bar" which obviously became very annoying. To me it highlighted the importance of using css (border-right) rather than using keyboard characters for visual seperation of links. |
I can't speak about JAWS, but using a pipe character ('bar') to seperate links is a 'good thing' inasmuch it can/will use voice transition to differentiate between links. Without the 'bar', the list of links is likely to render as one continuous stream (depending upon the mark-up and the reader).
| Daz wrote: |
| Lastly, one thing I didn't get the chance to test was abbreviations. Say for example a logo had alt text which it could read as a word, for example "DOL", is there anyway to get it to read just the letters, that is "D pause O pause L"? I think I've read putting spaces in the alt text helps, can anyone confirm if this is the case? |
Again I can't speak about JAWS, but taking HPR as an example the only way that I've managed to get an abbreviation spoken as individual letters is, as you've suggested, by putting spaces between them. I think that this is a fairly common issue for readers 'in general' as they don't have any real way of knowing what's required of them in this circumstance.
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Jake, as you were probably hinting at, if you mark up menus as lists and use borders for seperation then Jaws will pause before each link. Just thinking... does it say "list item", can't remember!
Anyway, the more I use Jaws the more I see the massive gap in the market for someone to provide a resource of findings on screen readers. Theres bound to be common behaviour which would lead to a list of tips for developers.
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TaylorMade | @darrent71
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| Jake wrote: | ||
I can't speak about JAWS, but using a pipe character ('bar') to seperate links is a 'good thing' inasmuch it can/will use voice transition to differentiate between links. Without the 'bar', the list of links is likely to render as one continuous stream (depending upon the mark-up and the reader). |
Isn't this also a requirement, if you're aiming for AAA anyway.
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| Torsten wrote: |
| Isn't this also a requirement, if you're aiming for AAA anyway. |
only if you think that the "until user agents..." clause has not been satisfied yet. otherwise you can safely ignore it.
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If you have links seperated by a bar character (or something similar, like a comma), that would indicate that they are a list of similar items. As such, marking them up using a list structure would be more appropriate and would seperate the links with more than whitespace alone. It also allows user agents to offer navigational aids, inform the user of the number of items before they begin going through the list, allow for fancier styling through CSS and so on.
So, if you have a list of links seperated by a text character, using proper markup should solve many issues and make the list easier to style.
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| redux wrote: |
| only if you think that the "until user agents..." clause has not been satisfied yet. otherwise you can safely ignore it. |
Good point. Has it? I must confess I'm not entirely sure what UA shortcomings this particular check point is supposed to address.
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| Torsten wrote: | ||
Good point. Has it? I must confess I'm not entirely sure what UA shortcomings this particular check point is supposed to address. |
Has it? A good question -- and not one that I'm sure has any real answer, as it presupposes a knowledge of all UAs in use -- and how they handle the various ways that a sequence of links can be marked up.
Typically, in HPR (a reader that I've been using for some years) the answer would have to be 'no -- but you can get around it'.
In other words, assume a list of links marked up as a list:if the individual list items do not have a terminating punctuation mark, then the links will be read (in a 'links' voice) as a continuous stream.
If they have a terminating punctuation mark, then there will be a slight pause.
I could however, tell the reader to prefix each list item with an identifier of some kind (typically, 'Item: ') when it's reading links marked-up as a list; but that wouldn't work with links marked-up as a single-column table, for example.
However, most readers operate in various reading 'modes' so that even if the reader renders a list of links as a continuous stream it should be possible to stop the reader, switch into 'one-word-at-a-time' mode and step through the links that way.
Summary? No real answer
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| Daz wrote: |
| Jake, as you were probably hinting at, if you mark up menus as lists and use borders for seperation then Jaws will pause before each link. Just thinking... does it say "list item", can't remember! |
I can't speak about JAWS, but HPR can be configured to speak 'Item:<pause>' before each item marked up as part of a list.
| Daz wrote: |
| Anyway, the more I use Jaws the more I see the massive gap in the market for someone to provide a resource of findings on screen readers. Theres bound to be common behaviour which would lead to a list of tips for developers. |
Yes. That's something that would be useful.
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Thanks for explaining that Jake. It sounds to me like it's probably still worth seperating the links with a non-link character of some kind.
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I'd advise against and actually raise it as a priority 2 failure under 3.3 Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. Mark your menus up as lists and use images/borders to seperate._________________
TaylorMade | @darrent71
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| Daz wrote: |
| I'd advise against and actually raise it as a priority 2 failure under 3.3 Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. Mark your menus up as lists and use images/borders to seperate. |
depends on whether or not you see the pipe | as content or presentation.
I would argue that it's content because it's deliberately and specifically included in the content to separate out links. If it's done in presentation, it may not be picked up appropriately by the screen reader. It's not used so much for visual formatting, it is provided in the markup so that user agents can utilise it. If you're using it for visual formatting only, however, then I'd agree with you.
However, I would suggest that as soon as the "until user agents" clause is reached, that the use of separation characters be stopped. I had hoped this was already the case...
heh. isn't it fun when we all disagree?
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Jack Pickard The Pickards Information Services| Blog | Twit
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| If you have links seperated by a bar character (or something similar, like a comma), that would indicate that they are a list of similar items. |
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