RE: question regarding to letting screen reader user turn chapters

Hello,

 

There are several design items:

 

Some reading systems  will automatically move to the next file. Some books have multiple files that make up each chapter, and how the heck does the end user know where a file ends. IMO this is the best approach. Apple Books is one that does it this way. I think the Kindle does it like this also.

 

The previous and next file/chapter/section is the next best approach. I would suggest setting two hotkeys to activate this button. It should also be positioned in a location that is easy for the reader to get to. Some have the previous button at the top   and the next at the bottom, while others have it in one consistent location, and yet others position the buttons both at the top and the bottom of the current content.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best

George

 

From: Zheng Xu <zxu@gardenia-corp.com> 
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2022 10:28 AM
To: W3C Publishing Community Group <public-publishingcg@w3.org>
Subject: question regarding to letting screen reader user turn chapters

 

Hi folks

 

Which way will screen reader users prefer for a reading system to move to next or prev chapter?

 

The website wysebee.com <https://wysebee.com>  added more a11y support recently. So it is supposed to help screen reader users easily reach an accessible book. (one of the most important mission of wysebee.com <http://wysebee.com>  is to have accessibility support as first priority and a11y friendly content as first class citizen)

Now I have an issue to solve - how to move to the next and previous chapter easily (with less steps). I am using both Mac voice over and Android Talkback to test at this moment.

 

The first accessible book I put in the website is the Accessible EPUB 3 and when I close my eyes and open that book I wonder how I can turn to next chapters (Wysebee is trying no pagination but scroll or turn chapter approach.). So right now Wysebee.com just show the first chapter at this moment. I am thinking about two ways - A. simply add next/prev chapter outside of the chapter frame or B. embed next/prev chapter button to end of each chapter xhtml. And I don't know which one would be better.

Do ppl usually go outside from frame and trying to find the turn chapter button? Or should I embed something in chapter html so that the end user does not need to use a voiceover command to move out of frame to find a way to change chapter?

Which way will screen reader users prefer from a reader perspective?

 

Cheers,

Zheng