Re: screen readers and punctuation

Thanks Jim for the two examples.  These two are, in my opinion, clearly 
web author/owner issues that need to be fixed.  Many of the other examples 
are Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Screen Reader issues to fix, not the author. 
So its important, in my opinion, to distinguish which type of issue it is 
and who is best (author, TTS, etc.) responsible to address the issue that 
caused the symptom. 

There are what I call classic benchmark test for TTS and Screen Readers 
users to use to check their settings and capabilities for context, 
acronyms, and abbreviations, but have nothing to do with the web page 
author's responsibility to fix.  For Example:
        a. 1002 St. John's St. is a CIA office - should be spoken or read 
as: "1 thousand 2 Saint John's Street C I A office." by the TTS or Screen 
Reader - nothing for the web author to fix or change,
 
Is there a standard TTS benchmark test published somewhere that a W3C 
working group could improve and reference and settle this ongoing debate?
___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Check out the new system for requesting an IBM product Accessibility 
Conformance Report VPAT? at  able.ibm.com/request
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Accessibility Executive
IBM Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/
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twitter.com/IBMAccess
ageandability.com




From:   Jim Allan <jimallan@tsbvi.edu>
To:     Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net>
Cc:     "Pyatt, Elizabeth J" <ejp10@psu.edu>, Karlen Communications 
<info@karlencommunications.com>, "tink@tink.uk" <tink@tink.uk>, 
Kalpeshkumar Jain <kalpeshjain89@gmail.com>, "Sean Murphy (seanmmur)" 
<seanmmur@cisco.com>, Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com>, 
w3c-wai-ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:   02/14/2019 03:42 PM
Subject:        Re: screen readers and punctuation



just to add to the vary interesting examples...
I work at a school for the blind. there is a local pizza place the 
students order from all is written in english. I received several reports 
about issues with the website. It had a website update... all still 
written in english, but the default language set for the entire site was 
Brazilian Portuguese... for which the screen reader just happen to have 
pronunciation guide. Perfectly visual readable site became a mess. We got 
the site to fix the issue.

an application we use had a button with an X on it - signifying delete. 
But the developer didn't like the standard X and choose a symbol that 
looks like an X, but the screen reader said "saltire". after some digging 
and head scratching found  U+2613 ? SALTIRE (HTML &#9747;) ... just so 
happened that the screen reader had that unicode in the pronunciation 
dictionary. After some googling, found it is also called Saint Andrew's 
Cross or the crux decussata,[1] is a heraldic symbol in the form of a 
diagonal cross, like the shape of the letter X in Roman type. still 
working on having the application fix this. 

always interesting what screen readers hear.
Jim

On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 3:14 PM Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> 
wrote:
siri is not, nor has ever been a screen  reading program.  Nor is text to 
speech a screen reading program.
I have a very dear friend who enjoys reading her harry Potter fan fiction, 

with the text to speech function of her Kindle.    The pronunciation 
mistakes are frankly epic.   It is unfortunate as well, because  it gives 
people a bad idea of how something common across populations, being read 
too, should sound.
I let her hear my dec-talk  synthesizer using my screen reader  and she 
wanted to buy one yesterday, smiles.
Kare



On Thu, 14 Feb 2019, Pyatt, Elizabeth J wrote:

> I agree it’s a challenge but if people are using TTS products like Siri 
then the issue is relevant to everyone.  Some of the same issues come up 
with speech recognition and natural language technologies.
>
> I wouldn’t expect it to be completely solved tomorrow. But I think 
there’s some low hanging fruit available.
>
> Elizabeth
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Feb 14, 2019, at 3:07 PM, Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> 
wrote:
>>
>> I am of a mind to ask if you seek  more from a screen reader / 
synthesizer then  one might expect from most humans?
>> The ability to read and speak multiple languages  switching from one to 
another whenever coming across text in an alternate  language  seems quite 
the gift.  How many  people in general read in this way?  Many 
synthesizers and screen readers can  read various languages, but I believe 
they assume that the person using them needs to read in that language 
consistently, translating things from other languages like English  into 
the   alternate language when required.
>> To expect a program and its voice to be happily reading along in 
English and then, when suddenly coming across Japanese  to read and 
enunciate in perfect Japanese seems  rather atypical does it not?
>> After all, at their best screen readers and synthesizers substitute for 
eyes and ears if that makes sense.
>> Kare
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Thu, 14 Feb 2019, Karlen Communications wrote:
>>>
>>> With different languages, we run into the problem of our screen 
readers/synthesizers not supporting a specific language. The example 
Elizabeth gave of something in Japanese has two component: The text being 
"tagged for lack of a better word" in the appropriate language and the 
screen reader/synthesizer being able to switch to that language; and the 
ability to then pull out any accents for individual characters.
>>>
>>> For example, if I am using an English voice and encounter French, if 
the French isn't identified as being French, my screen reader will try to 
read it in English...without the appropriate pronunciations of words.
>>>
>>> While I can, as was stated, add something to my screen reader 
pronunciation dictionary, I can't realistically do this for every word in 
every language I encounter...and how to I know my interpretation of the 
text is correct? For different languages, I need the ability of the screen 
reader/synthesizer to switch to that language so that text is pronounced 
correctly as I read.
>>>
>>> Then I may need the ability to go through the text in a more granular 
way in order to examine accents.
>>>
>>> Cheers, Karen
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Pyatt, Elizabeth J <ejp10@psu.edu>
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2019 12:03 PM
>>> To: tink@tink.uk
>>> Cc: Kalpeshkumar Jain <kalpeshjain89@gmail.com>; Sean Murphy 
(seanmmur) <seanmmur@cisco.com>; Michellanne Li <michellanne.li@gmail.com
>; w3c-wai-ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
>>> Subject: Re: screen readers and punctuation
>>>
>>> I appreciate everyone’s time in reviewing these scenarios. It does 
seem like there’s been some progress since it looks like both Léone and 
Karen found a way to detect gaps and activate these pronunciations. In 
some situations, students might need help knowing where these utilities 
are.
>>>
>>> It’s also good to know that I can just use Unicode in these scenarios.
>>>
>>> Elizabeth
>>>
>>> P.S. I’m assuming the kanji 柔道 is pronounced like “judo” ;). I also 
assume a more dedicated Japanese or Asian Studies student would need 
access to Japanese language packs which vendors like Freedom Scientific, 
Apple and others make available. I still haven’t found anything for 
Gaulish yet...
>>>
>>>> On Feb 14, 2019, at 11:53 AM, Léonie Watson <tink@tink.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 14/02/2019 15:55, Pyatt, Elizabeth J wrote:
>>>>> Leonie:
>>>>> I do understand why some punctuation is suppressed, but this isn’t 
really the scenario that worries me. I’m more worried about technical 
content like the following cases which I pulled from Wikipedia.
>>>>> I would be curious what is pronounced on your screen reader.
>>>>> 1. Japanese Culture:
>>>>> Judō 柔道  meaning "gentle way" was originally created in 1882 by 
Jigoro Kano (嘉納治五郎) as a physical, mental and moral pedagogy in 
Japan.
>>>>> Note: Judo was spelled with a long o and is followed by Japanese 
Kanji characters.
>>>>
>>>> The word judo was pronounced as it should be (like joodo). The Kanji 
was not announced but there was a noticeable gap as my screen reader read 
the entire chunk of content.
>>>>
>>>> I have now copied the Kanji into my screen reader's custom 
dictionary, where I can configure it to announce whatever might be 
appropriate (if only I understood Kanji).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 2. English phonetics
>>>>> Most varieties of English have syllabic consonants in some words, 
principally [l?, m?, n?], for example at the end of bottle, rhythm and 
button. … However phonologists prefer to identify syllabic nasals and 
liquids phonemically as /?C/. Thus button is phonemically /?b?t?n/ or 
/?b?t?n/ and bottle is phonemically /?b?t?l/, /?bɑt?l/, or 
/?b?t?l/.
>>>>> Note: The first bracket contains 3 symbols - l,m,n with a vertical 
bar beneath. The second is schwa + C. The last set of brackets are all 
variant transcriptions of button and bottle with variant vowel symbols.
>>>>
>>>> In those cases my screen reader recognises those symbols, even though 
it doesn't speak them correctly. This seems to stray into pronunciation 
rather than character identification though, and there is work just 
starting at the W3C to look at solutions for pronunciation with synthetic 
speech.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, the same technique applies. It's the same technique I used 
before emoticons and emoji were common on the web, I would configure my 
screen reader to speak ":)" as "smile" or "smiley face".
>>>>
>>>>> In some cases enclosing content in parentheses, slashes or brackets 
can indicate technical content is present even if the screen reader fails 
to say anything. A student taking Japanese or phonetics can also upgrade 
their symbol file, but it’s not an upgrade currently needed by sighted 
users since the phonetic fonts are provided by Apple and Windows.
>>>>> I hope this clarifies my concern.
>>>>
>>>> It does, but I think it may be less of a concern than you believe. It 
can be a problem, but more often than not it's a problem that can be 
solved, as Kern explained.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Léonie
>>>>> Elizabeth
>>>>>> On Feb 14, 2019, at 10:08 AM, Léonie Watson <tink@tink.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 14/02/2019 14:33, Pyatt, Elizabeth J wrote:
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This isn't a good comparison because the two scenarios are 
different. It isn't that screen readers don't recognise punctuation and 
symbols, it's that they're configured to ignore them (often as a conscious 
choice by the user).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maths and MathML is a different thing, but in terms of the 
punctuation and symbols used in typical content, there is a really good 
reason why screen readers are configured the way they are.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let's take this example: "Hello, how are you?".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When configured to speak all symbols and punctuation, this is what 
a screen reader says:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let apostrophe s take this example colon quote How are you question 
quote period.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That is unusable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When the screen reader is configured to speak only important 
punctuation (like the @ in an email address for example), then the screen 
reader reads it like a human would.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let's take this example: "Hello, how are you?".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It pauses for the colons and commas, it elevates in pitch to 
signify the question, and it pauses a little longer at the full stop.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Your sentence is a good example of why missing symbols are often 
easy to spot. This is what my screen reader announced:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "...symbol that the font can’t display, the reader normally sees a 
or “X” character."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There was an obvious gap between "sees a" and "or", so I went to 
explore and found the question mark in quotes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In many cases blind people are part of the teams that create screen 
readers, and so the default configurations are based on practical 
experience. Punctuation is also a commonly changed configuration by even 
the most inexperienced screen reader users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Léonie
>>>>>>> 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://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fw

>>>>>>>> ww.rapidtables.com
%2Fweb%2Fhtml%2Fhtml-codes.html&amp;data=02%7C01
>>>>>>>> %7Cejp10%40psu.edu
%7Cddf40f8afff34fc29c8d08d6929d0ae7%7C7cf48d453d
>>>>>>>> 
db4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C636857600536148013&amp;sdata=9GkU
>>>>>>>> 1dJaBw41NhuEGbdu6hRK4POGQRH1G6N%2BazaRj58%3D&amp;reserved=0
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>   I have not tested this myself. But if a page was using Math-l 
would the screen reader use the < = or the full words?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> <image001.png>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sean Murphy
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> SR ENGINEER.SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> seanmmur@cisco.com
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Tel: +61 2 8446 7751
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>       Cisco Systems, Inc.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The Forum 201 Pacific Highway
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ST LEONARDS
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 2065
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Australia
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> cisco.com
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> <image002.gif>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Think before you print.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This email may contain confidential and privileged material for 
the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution or 
disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended 
recipient (or authorized to receive for the recipient), please contact the 
sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message.
>>>>>>>> Please click here for Company Registration Information.
>>>>>>>>   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.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fww

>>>>>>>> w.michellanne.com&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cejp10%40psu.edu
%7Cddf40f8afff
>>>>>>>> 
34fc29c8d08d6929d0ae7%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7
>>>>>>>> 
C636857600536148013&amp;sdata=LOqeDKkb%2BleyQKl8peHvPU20CnplOSOToK
>>>>>>>> a1D4WbEO4%3D&amp;reserved=0
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> @LeonieWatson Carpe diem
>>>>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> @LeonieWatson Carpe diem
>>>
>>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>


-- 
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315    fax: 512.206.9452 http://www.tsbvi.edu/

"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964