RE: screen readers and punctuation

If you use Unicode characters, the reliability of readability/pronunciation increases. Take a look at this resource:

https://www.pubcom.com/books/bevi_dingbats/dingbats_chart.shtml

 

For a “cheat sheet” of Unicode characters and how the JAWS and NVDA screen readers interpret them.

 

Cheers, Karen

 

 

 

 

From: Kalpeshkumar Jain <kalpeshjain89@gmail.com> 
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2019 2:14 AM
To: Sean Murphy (seanmmur) <seanmmur@cisco.com>
Cc: Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com>; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: screen readers and punctuation

 

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 <mailto: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.

 

 

I have not tested this myself. But if a page was using Math-l would the screen reader use the < = or the full words?

 






 

 


Sean Murphy

SR ENGINEER.SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

 <mailto:seanmmur@cisco.com> seanmmur@cisco.com

Tel: +61 2 8446 7751

 

 


 

 

 

 
 
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From: Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com <mailto:michellanne.li@gmail.com> > 
Sent: Thursday, 14 February 2019 2:40 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto: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 <https://www.deque.com/blog/dont-screen-readers-read-whats-screen-part-1-punctuation-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 <http://www..michellanne.com>