- From: Joshue O Connor <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:54:38 +0100
- To: Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
Sander Tekelenburg wrote: > My impression is that the explanation is in the name, "screen reader". Indeed > you'd think a talking browser would act as you say, but it seems that it is a > relatively recent thing that screen readers look at the actual HTML > themselves. The technology seems to have started out as something that more > or less literally 'reads the screen' -- take what is sent to the screen and > convert that to speech or braille. A screen reader is not talking browser but full fledged text to speech software. For more Google the most popular like JAWS, WindowEyes, Orca etc. > To provide a more intelligent presentation of content, such software can > receive some interpretation of the HTML from the host OS, which it in turn > gets from the GUA. Most Screen readers use the Off Screen Model (OSM) apart from Dolphins Supernova which interacts directly with the DOM. > But to be able to provide a truly useful presentation, such a tool will of > course need to parse the HTML itself. As I understand it, that last approach > has only recently started to happen in screen readers. Again most use the OSM. A screen reader will also work in various modes and for example only interact directly with the web page itself in what JAWS refers to as 'Forms mode'. This is to navigate forms, enter text into form fields etc. It is usually in virtual mode, which is the screen reader using the OSM, which is in effect a virtualisation of the HTML page the author creates. The better the HTML, the better the virtualisation. Cheers Josh
Received on Thursday, 21 June 2007 18:55:03 UTC