Re: Screen-reader behaviour

At 15:20 -0400 UTC, on 2007-09-04, David Poehlman wrote:

> I've chopped this message up leaving only the portions I am addressing and
> inserted my responses into it marked with *dp*.

Why not use the traditional/standard quoting method? (Not only easier to read
for most people, but doesn't require me to fix everything again in order to
make *my* message readable.) If there are good reasons why it's hard to make
messages readable for screen reader users, I'm willing to try to adjust.

>> From: "Sander Tekelenburg" <st@isoc.nl>
>> [...] I wonder why a Jaws user
>> does not use such a dedicated aural UA for his Web access? Is it too
>> complicated to learn to use both tools? Is it too expensive to buy both?
>> Does using both generate conflicts, or crashes?
>
> there are none currently in production that I know of

See
<http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/UAs#head-a137e73d13abc9d5a8e4a8a83974f2aa96775fab>.

> [...] It is far better to use an integrated solution for many reasons
> than to use a different solution for each task as which is part of the
> reason for instance, that Microsoft Office is so popular.

That's just an opinion. Many are of the opposite opinion: that it works far
better to use dedicated apps that do one single thing good. I can understand
that someone needs a screen reader to get access to then entire OS and all
apps. But of for Web access there is a dedicated tool that does much better,
I'd expect that (at least some users) would use that for their Web access.
Unless, and that's why I asked, there are compatibility or other problems
that keeps people from doing that.

[... potential growth of screen reader competition]

> *dp* This trend is well worth exploring, but the market for screen readers
> for instance at least here in the us is heavily guided by what employers
> want their employees to do

Ah yes, employers...

[... problems switch from Jaws to x]

Thanks for the feedback!

> HTML5 needs to be developped to be
> technology neutral because if it is built on the premise that people are
> going to be using jaws, they'll continue to use jaws no matter what happens
> in the market place as long as it is available and if JAWS becomes no longer
> available, html5 being jaws centric will hurt badly.

Yeah. Agreed.

[... @longdesc crashing Jaws for years]

> AT is often developped througha process of trial
> and error and based on certain forces which are likely to contribute to its
> growth.  If such a force dictates that something is done which
> inadvedrtantly breaks something else, it will be done.

Yeah, a new feature might result in breaking an old feature. But *crash* bugs
are unacceptable per definition. If that was so widespread, and existed for
so long, that accessibility advocates started advising authors to not use
longdesc, there is something very, very wrong. (Hard to judge, based on this
limited information, whether Jaws was wrong or the people advising to not use
@longdesc. Probably both.)


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Sunday, 9 September 2007 02:46:09 UTC