RE: screen reader reporting of negative values

Hi Roger,

Roughly a year ago I filed the following bug at NVDA: http://community.nvda-project.org/ticket/2625 - it was subsequently fixed.  Are you aware of any screen reader that is not announcing the dash as a negative when combined with a numeral? If so could you share that data (as clearly that is a concern to my organization <smile>) - note we seemingly always use the standard keyboard "-" (dash) as opposed to the &mdash; or &#8212 (which, AFAIK, should not be being used for negative values anyway).  Do you have a "support" matrix handy?

Cheers!

JF

From: Roger Hudson [mailto:rhudson@usability.com.au]
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 10:27 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: screen reader reporting of negative values

Hi,

I am interested in finding the best way to include negative values in a table. For example a table showing an overdrawn bank account or a temperature below zero (c or f).

It seems that there is some variability in the level of screen reader (and/or browser) support for coded &mdash; and &#8212; or the standard keyboard dash.

One possibility would be to combine one of the above with the word 'minus' which is positioned off-left so that it is not visible but will still be read by a screen reader. However, this could result in some screen reader users hearing "minus dash $40.00. Would this be worse than risking some just hearing $40.00?

Thanks,

Roger

Roger Hudson
Web Usability
Mobile: 0405 320 014
Phone: 02 9568 1535
Web: www.usability.com.au<http://www.usability.com.au>
Blog: www.dingoaccess.com<http://www.dingoaccess.com>
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rogerhudson
Email: rhudson@usability.com.au<mailto:rhudson@usability.com.au>



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