FW: FW: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)

I asked Neal Ewers here at trace to try this out with different screen 
readers.

Here are his results.

-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Human Factors
Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
Director - Trace R & D Center
gv@trace.wisc.edu    http://trace.wisc.edu
FAX 608/262-8848
For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu


-----Original Message-----
From:	Neal Ewers [SMTP:ewers@trace.wisc.edu]
Sent:	Tuesday, November 04, 1997 2:46 PM
To:	po@trace.wisc.edu
Subject:	Re: FW: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)

Bullet test
GENERAL COMMENTS
It would appear that the synthesizer a person is using is more important 
here than is the screen reader.  With the screen reader, you can turn on 
and off various levels of punctuation, but the pause that is placed after 
the punctuation seems largely dependent on the synthesizer in use at the 
time.
I have tried the test page with the Dectalk Express, the Accent SA, and the 
softvoice synthesizers.  The screen readers I have used are JFW for 
Windows, Winvision from Artic Systems, and Window-eyes from GwMicro.  I 
have used Ms Internet Explorer 3.0, Netscape 3.0 and 4.0 and PwWebspeak 
1.4.  Here are the results.
INTERNET EXPLORER 3.0
(Note.  I have to get the font size up to 16 point before the image is read 
by the screen reader on the same line as the text.  When it is smaller and 
when I am reading with the mouse pointer by line, the screen reader will 
say image on one line and speak the text on the next line.  After I have 
done this, and I suspect few screen reader users will do this, I get the 
following results.
1.	Jfw with Dectalk
* Spaces after the image do not make a difference.
* period is longest pause, then comma.  Colon does not pause. * Numbered 
list does not make a difference.

2.	JFW with Accent sa
* space does not make a difference.
* Pause after colon and period is quite long.  Pause after comma is about 
half as long as colon and period.
* Numbered list does not make a difference.

3.	Winvision with Accent SA.
* same as JFW with Accent SA

4.	Winvision with Dectalk.
* Same as JFW with Dectalk.

5.	Window-eyes with Accent SA
* same as JFW with Accent SA

6.	Window-eyes with Dectalk.
* Same as JFW with Dectalk.

WEBSPEAK 1.4 with SoftVoice
* The word "image" is spoken in place of the graphic.  So the line reads 
"image item text."
* Colon pauses the longest, then comma, then period which does not pause at 
all.
* Numbers at the beginning of the text do not make any difference except 
that the period before the number causes the "period-to be pronounced as 
"point" as in "image point 1."

NETSCAPE 3.0 AND 4.0
* Tests were inconclusive.  I had a hard time here.  No matter how big I 
made the font, (up to 16 point) when I read with the mouse pointer (line by 
line) the screen reader read the image on one line and the text on the next 
line.  When I allowed the screen reader to read the entire screen, the 
pauses I found after various punctuation were the same as with Internet 
Explorer (in other words, they were synthesizer dependent and stayed the 
same from one screen reader to another).

At 11:33 PM 11/3/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Please test this with as many screen readers and browsers as you can
>
>Got your other results.  Very helpful.
>
>Thanks
>Gregg
>
>
>-- ------------------------------
>Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
>Professor - Human Factors
>Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
>Director - Trace R & D Center
>gv@trace.wisc.edu    http://trace.wisc.edu
>FAX 608/262-8848
>For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Gregg Vanderheiden [SMTP:po@trace.wisc.edu]
>Sent:	Monday, November 03, 1997 11:14 PM
>To:	'Charles (Chuck) Oppermann'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>Subject:	RE: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)
>
> Chuck
>I'm missing something here.   The only way currently to use a graphic as a 
>bullet is to *not* use the list constructs (tags) and to just have the
>graphic bullets as small graphic images inserted in front a bunch of
>indented one line paragraphs  (or they use line breaks to keep the lines
>closer together).    At least that is what people are doing now.
>How does Active Accessibility tell you that that is a list?
>(If and when you can specify that an image is used as a bullet image then
>you don't need to put alt text in cause there will be not images to put 
the
>alt text on.  If graphics are turned off I would presume the regular
>bullets would appear.  Hmmmm   would the alt text appear at the top of the 
>list where there image specification for the list was placed? --unless of
>course it is in the style sheet.)
>By the way,  an old question that didn't get answered (at least if it did 
I
>missed it - too much stuff too late at night).   Does HTML 4.0 allow a
>graphic to be specified as the image to be used in a UL ?      Can you do
>it with CSS or CSS2?
>
>
>You also wrote:
>so if I have a picture of a furry dog as my list
>item graphic, I as an HTML author need to always use "Item" as the ALT
>attribute?  Isn't this a misuse of the ALT attribute?
>I would say the answer is no.  The purpose of ALT is to represent the
>*function* not the look of an item.  If all your bullets are fuzzy dogs 
and
>that is just because you are a pet shop, then "item" would be the function 
>of the Dog bullets.     If you used dog and cat bullets to indicate dog 
and
>cat related items then "dog item" or "cat item" would be the proper alt
>text.    Unless the fuzzyness of the dog represented some meaning, it 
would
>not be in the alt tag.
>At least that is my reading of the consensus of the list.     Anyone else
>read it differently?
>
>
>Also,  has anyone tested this on any other screen readers?  If so let me
>know.  I'm going to run some tests here but we don't have all the screen
>reader and browser combinations.
>Please just listen to the following lines on your systems and tell me (on
>the list or separately) which ones pause and which do not.
>Item. Bananas with period.
>Item, Bananas with comma.
>Item: Bananas with semicolon.
>
>I have also attached an HTML page with the above items on it.  Please let
>me know if you get a different result with the HTML page.
>
>
>(Need to know results soonest for guidelines)
>thx
>
>Gregg
>
>-- ------------------------------
>Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
>Professor - Human Factors
>Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
>Director - Trace R & D Center
>gv@trace.wisc.edu    http://trace.wisc.edu
>FAX 608/262-8848
>For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Charles (Chuck) Oppermann [SMTP:chuckop@MICROSOFT.com]
>Sent:	Monday, November 03, 1997 8:39 PM
>To:	'po@trace.wisc.edu'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>Subject:	RE: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)
>
>I disagree with this - so if I have a picture of a furry dog as my list
>item graphic, I as an HTML author need to always use "Item" as the ALT
>attribute?  Isn't this a misuse of the ALT attribute?
>Via the HTML object model and Active Accessibility, screen readers will
>know they are talking to a list item already.  This guideline only helps
>down level browsers and certain screen readers with the *visual*
>presentation of the list item.
>I fear that this kind of guideline only makes adoption less likely by 
being
>confusing.
>Charles Oppermann
>Windows NT User Interface Group, Microsoft Corporation
>mailto:chuckop@microsoft.com http://microsoft.com/enable/ "A computer on
>every desk and in every home, usable by everyone!"
>-----Original Message-----
>	From:	Gregg Vanderheiden [SMTP:po@trace.wisc.edu]
>	Sent:	Monday, November 03, 1997 1:11 PM
>	To:	w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>	Subject:	RE: ALT-attribute usage (fwd)
>
>Perfect.  Just the feedback we needed.
>Unless I hear otherwise the guidelines will recommend
>1)	that any graphics used as bullets have the alt text  "Item"
>With a
>character to cause a pause after the word.
>The two candidates are Comma and Semicolon.   Possibly with a
>space
>afterward to keep the word from running into the next word.
>Couple of questions to close this one off
>* Is there a consensus that there should be "item"?  (I thought
>I got one
>but am not sure)
>* Is comma the proper character for a pause.  It is longer but longer may
>not be better.  And Semicolon looks better visually and more natural so it 
>might get included more.     Should we use Semicolon or comma?
>* Is the space needed?  Can someone confirm?  Is it needed for comma?   Is 
>it needed for Semicolon?
>
>
>Thanks much.
>Gregg
>	-- ------------------------------
>Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
>Guidelines Scribe and Compiler
>
>
>Attachment Converted: d:\mail\attach\ItemTest.htm
>

Neal Ewers
Field Coordinator
Trace Research and Development Center
Waisman Center, room S153
1500 Highland Avenue
University of Wisconsin-Madison 53705
Phone: (608) 263-5485
FAX: (608) 262-8848
FTP, Gopher and WWW servers at: trace.wisc.edu For a list of our listserve 
discussions send lists to:
listproc@trace.wisc.edu
	

Received on Tuesday, 4 November 1997 21:37:05 UTC