Re: screen readers and punctuation

I agree. 

I know that pronunciation of some symbols may vary with context but even a scrambled pronunciation of an exotic symbol is better than skipping it all together. 

Again comparing this to what sighted users experience, if a person is reading a document with a symbol that the font can’t display, the reader normally sees a “?” or “X” character. There’s an indication that something is there and that a font upgrade might be needed in order to view the entire document.

A sighted user can determine if it’s worth the trouble to get a new font, but at least they know it’s an option. When screen readers skip symbols, the user can’t easily determine if there is an issue. A screen reader user could choose to disable that function, but that would be the choice of the person not the technology.

Elizabeth

> On Feb 14, 2019, at 2:14 AM, Kalpeshkumar Jain <kalpeshjain89@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have had a similar experience with different SR and punctuations/symbols reading behavior in one of the projects I worked on recently.
> It was bit frustrating that SR was ignoring simple symbols like '+, -, *, /, <, etc.'
> Using MathML for simple expressions was not feasible in my situation.
> 
> Instead of using the symbols as is, we used their respective HTML character codes.We referred below link to get the entities:
> https://www.rapidtables.com/web/html/html-codes.html

> 
> The result was an improvement in the reading behavior. SR were identifying the symbols.
> However it was still not 100% coverage.
> 
> Ultimately, we had to add a disclaimer stating SR might skip some symbols
> We had to leave the choice of enabling the setting to read all punctuations in SR tools to the User as that cannot be done programmatically.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Kalpeshkumar Jain
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 4:53 AM Sean Murphy (seanmmur) <seanmmur@cisco.com> wrote:
> The versions of screen readers here being used are very old. Also the punctuation is very dependent on context. As if you are using a math or programming. The <= will mean something different than if it is used for identifying how the flow of processes goes. Such as 1 <= 3 is a maths equation. But if I say process1 <= process2 providing context of order of process means something else. I  wouldn’t want the 2nd example to say less than or equal too. Also it is a lot less content to comprehend hearing <= than the full words. A screen reader user gets used to how things are spoken. The brain is an amazing program or computer within itself.
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> I have not tested this myself. But if a page was using Math-l would the screen reader use the < = or the full words?
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> <image001.png>
> 
> Sean Murphy
> 
> SR ENGINEER.SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
> 
> seanmmur@cisco.com
> 
> Tel: +61 2 8446 7751
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> From: Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com> 
> Sent: Thursday, 14 February 2019 2:40 AM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: screen readers and punctuation
> 
>  
> 
> 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. 
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> 
> Since it was written in 2014, I am wondering if screen reader technology has since been updated to better read out important symbols.
> 
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> 
> 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 Thursday, 14 February 2019 14:33:51 UTC