Re: screen readers and punctuation

I would personally feel that this isn’t as large an issue because if a user chooses to disable punctuation, then there is an awareness of what might be happening. Having all punctuation be read aloud could be distracting.

If the content was particularly technical, a warning might be appropriate that some characters might be missed in a screen reader.  On the other hand it’s hard to make up for a complete screen reader deficit.

I think some screenreader developers are expecting MathML coding to fill in the gaps, but I don’t think that’s always appropriate. It doesn’t make sense to require short linear equations like 5 > 4 (with greater than sign) to be coded as MathML. Nor would MathML make sense for a lesser known symbol such as the Korean Won currency symbol or most phonetic symbols.

Unicode exists as a standard to facilitate exchange of all symbols. If Windows and Mac can provide fonts to display a wide range of symbols then it would make sense for screen readers to do the same.

Elizabeth

> On Feb 13, 2019, at 11:35 AM, Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> How might one account for that?
> 
> Michellanne Li
> (512) 718-2207
> http://www.michellanne.com

> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 10:32 AM Joseph Yang <joesaiyang@gmail.com> wrote:
> You'd have to account for users who have disabled the reading of punctuation as well. 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 10:54 AM Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I just read this piece from Deque on how screen readers address punctuation: Why Don’t Screen Readers Always Read What’s on the Screen? Part 1: Punctuation and Typographic Symbols. 
> 
> Since it was written in 2014, I am wondering if screen reader technology has since been updated to better read out important symbols.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Michellanne Li
> (512) 718-2207
> http://www.michellanne.com


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Accessibility IT Consultant
Teaching and Learning with Technology
Penn State University
ejp10@psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)

The 300 Building, 112
304 West College Avenue
State College, PA 16801
accessibility.psu.edu

Received on Wednesday, 13 February 2019 17:04:42 UTC