Screen Readers and CAPS
Hi, and Hello to the board.
A simple question for those with the knowledge or the hardware, I read somewhere that screen readers read capitols letter by letter. Is that true?
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No idea
However as writing in CAPS has been a form of yelling at the reader for the last few hundred years of print media..... the screenreader should yell the text at the user!
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[size=9]Kyle J. Lamson
Analyst/Programmer III, State of Alaska
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Hi Sainkho ans welcome to the forum 
Screenreaders should read out words as written so, CAPITALS, should be read out the same as, capitals.
I think your question relates to the use of acronyms and abbreviations. Correctly marking your text with
| Code: |
| <acronym title="bee bee see">BBC</acronym> |
| Code: |
| <abbr title="squirrel">SQL</abbr> |
Saw a good demonstration of a screenreader the other day and there seemed to be no problem with capitals.
Mike Abbott
Accessible to everyone
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Well my question was as my question was; but just looky there, what I've also learnt!
Thanks, Mike.
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| Mikea wrote: | ||||
I think your question relates to the use of acronyms and abbreviations. Correctly marking your text with
|
Mike, isn't that the wrong way around? BBC should be marked up with abbr tags and SQL should use acronym tags.
| Sainkho wrote: |
| I read somewhere that screen readers read capitols letter by letter. Is that true? |
I too have heard that some screen readers will read out words in all capitals letter-by-letter. For words that I think look better as CAPITALS, I keep them as lowercase (possible capital for first letter) and then transform the text using CSS, for example:
| Code: |
| span.uppercase {text-transform: uppercase} |
Jon Gibbins, dotjay.co.uk, accessibility.co.uk wiki.
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| Mikea wrote: | ||||
Correctly marking your text with
|
Sorry, Mike. BBC is not an acronym, it's an abbreviation (more specifically as initialism, but there's no separate element type for those). SQL is pronounced as an abbreviation (initialism) by some, and as some kind of pseudo-acronym by some. I'd mark both of those up with <abbr>.
Secondly, you're abusing the title attribute. It's not supposed to contain directions for pronunciation, but the expansion of the abbreviation or acronym.
| Code: |
| <abbr title="British Broadcasting Corporation">BBC</abbr>
<abbr title="Structured Query Language">SQL</abbr> <acronym title="self-contained underwater breathing apparatus">scuba</acronym> |
Tommy has left the building
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Oh bol* 
**s 
<note>write out 100 times 'I must not abuse my elements'</note>
Come to think of it
no-one has ever explained that to me before, I assumed that the title attribute was to allow pronunciation of the letters individually to stop screenreaders trying to pronounce them as a word, hence the bee bee see.
I see now
Tommy, I think I owe you one
Mike Abbott
Accessible to everyone
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| Mikea wrote: |
| <note>write out 100 times 'I must not abuse my elements'</note> |
Or your attributes, Mike!
Jon Gibbins, dotjay.co.uk, accessibility.co.uk wiki.
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| TOOLman wrote: |
|
Sorry, Mike. BBC is not an acronym, it's an abbreviation (more specifically as initialism, but there's no separate element type for those). SQL is pronounced as an abbreviation (initialism) by some, and as some kind of pseudo-acronym by some. I'd mark both of those up with <abbr>. |
Unfortunately, IE doesn't support <abbr> - only <acronym>.
Whilst I appreciate that there has to be a point when, as authors, we can not support browser behaviour that runs contrary to the specs, this is a browser that has at least 70% of the graphical browser market and which is also the recommended rendering engine for the most common screen reader.
Given a choice of applying the specifications rigidly or ensuring that elements within a page have the greatest possible access using the (currently) most popular browser, I'll go for the latter, every time and use <acronym> even thought the grammarian in me insists that 'BBC' is actually an abbreviation.
Your mileage may...no...WILL vary.
Mel
If you notice rather bizarre typos, it's because I'm not typing but using Voice Recognition software. A spill checker doesn't do any good. Please have patients. I do attempt to edit my coffee but occasionally mist
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I guess it comes down to (potential) future-proofing versus using hacks or not using abbr elements at all!Jon Gibbins, dotjay.co.uk, accessibility.co.uk wiki.
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read recent webcredible article with interest - the writer refering to Abbr and Acronym states "Screen readers don't support these tags though so they don't really offer much of a benefit to these users"
Is this right? I have had many 'accessibility experts' and 'consultants' swear by the fact that screen readers use these tags to enable them to pronounce the abbr or acronym correctly - i.e. if marked up as an acronym, it will try pronounce it as a complete word, whereas abbreviations will be read out letter by letter.
Specifically interested to hear back from people who have been involved in testing/demonstrations of screen readers using these tags.
I have tried to contact webcredible for them to elaborate, but no-response
Have I been lied to?
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Old, old, old versions of the common screen readers did not support these elements. Newer versions certainly do support the abbr and acronym elements, in as far as JAWS version 4.51 and up and Window-Eyes version 4.5 and up have done so, although I'm not certain to what extent.
In JAWS at least, a screen reader user can typically select a preference to "expand abbreviations" or not and to "expand acronyms" or not.
However, there are things that screen readers don't yet do with these elements. For example, no support for aural CSS means that developers cannot control how these elements are spoken by the software (whether or not this is a good thing is a debate for another time).
Edit:
I think perhaps it's a common misconception that, because IE doesn't support abbr (although, maybe IE supports abbr after all), that screen readers therefore don't support it either.
Edit:
| Quote: |
| I have had many 'accessibility experts' and 'consultants' swear by the fact that screen readers use these tags to enable them to pronounce the abbr or acronym correctly - i.e. if marked up as an acronym, it will try pronounce it as a complete word, whereas abbreviations will be read out letter by letter. |
To my knowledge, this isn't correct. Screen readers will analyse words to see if they can be read as a word rather than rely on the use of the oft misunderstood abbr and acronym elements.
Jon Gibbins, dotjay.co.uk, accessibility.co.uk wiki.
Last edited by dotjay on 11 Feb 2008 10:33 pm; edited 3 times in total
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IE7 added support for <abbr>.
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| IE7 added support for <abbr>. |
Yup, but it seems that IE 5.5 and IE 6 will also add abbr to the DOM if you use:
| Code: |
| <script type="text/javascript">
document.createElement("abbr") </script> |
Sorry, slightly off-topic really.
Jon Gibbins, dotjay.co.uk, accessibility.co.uk wiki.
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Hi
Something to remeber is that its not just down to your AT (assistive technology) it could well be decided by your choosen TTS engine. Not everyone plumps for the default voice that comes with the operating system. While they are getting a bit better, they still suck compared to the state of the art engines. If you buy one of those it may well choose to deal with capitals differently. e.g. one I'm using now is very good, and decides what to do based on whether it 'thinks' its a word or an acronym. You can force it to do either pronouce or spellout, and some AT may or may not force such behaviour using TTS engine APIs, and/or have settings to make the 'force consistant' or 'smart' behaviour optional.
Which is why the abbr element is still the best way to deal with things if you can.
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