Re: Braille readers read Arial font characters incorrectly

Thanks Mark
He very specifically mentioned Arial - the knowledge this person gained was
2nd hand from an accessibility training course he had attended. So
unfortunately I won't be able to test or confirm either way.

It appears though that we all agree that the font itself should not affect
output of standard characters.

Regards, Harry

On 5 September 2017 at 21:49, Mark Sadecki <mark.sadecki@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Harry,
>
> It may be worth asking the user to confirm if it is indeed the Arial font
> being used to render the character. It is become increasingly common for
> web sites to incorporate “icon fonts” like FontAwesome (
> http://fontawesome.io/) that might be rendered incorrectly when
> represented as braille. Ideally, these icon fonts would be hidden from
> screen readers with aria-hidden.  Obviously, there would be an accessible
> equivalent for the icon as well.
>
> Best,
>
> Mark
>
> On Sep 5, 2017, at 2:56 PM, Harry Loots <harry.loots@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks Richard
> Again,  you confirm my suspicion that the person who mentioned it in the
> focus group I was running,  had gained a misunderstanding from somewhere. I
> could not see that font would influence output but thought I'd ask. Your
> suggestion that Braille reader software may be corrupt makes sense.
> Regards,  Harry
>
>
> On 5 Sep 2017 20:30, "Userite" <richard@userite.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Harry,
>
> So far as I am aware all braille readers interpret the underlying HTML
> text (ASCII code) and therefore don’t care what font you use.  This is the
> same for screen readers.  So if your braille reader is miss-reading some
> characters on a page the problem is probably due to a faulty
> character setting for the relevant page.
>
> You should check in the <head> section  to make sure that you have it
> correct, it should say something like <meta charset=”utf-8”>
>
> If the character setting is correct then you probably have a problem with
> the braille reader software and need to check if it is corrupted. Also
> check that you have the latest version.  If necessary reinstall the
> software.
>
> The problem should be nothing to do with CSS unless you use a style sheet
> with the media type braille specified, in which case delete it as it is now
> a deprecated media type.
>
> Regards
> Richard
>
> Richard Warren
> Technical Manager
> www.website-accessibilty.com
>
>
> *From:* Harry Loots <harry.loots@ieee.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 05, 2017 11:48 AM
> *To:* w3c <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Braille readers read Arial font characters incorrectly
>
> Dear all
>
> In a meeting with a focus group a few days ago (i'm currently managing a
> re-design of an intranet for a UN agency in Rome) a user suggested that
> certain characters in the Arial font are misread by Braille readers. (He
> specifically mentioned "i"  which he said is displayed as three strokes or
> something...)
>
> I have not heard about this before, and don't seem to be able to find
> information about this on the web either.
>
> So, does any one have experience of Braille readers reading fonts
> incorrectly? If we are aware of such anomalies one may be able to
> circumvent it using CSS to provide alternative fonts to ensure the
> information is received correctly.
>
> Many thanks
> Harry
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 6 September 2017 07:09:28 UTC