[CEUD-ICT] WebAIM Screen reader survey results

[Eamon Mag Uidhir]

Sorry, folks, a long mail follows. However, I do think it opens up a  
serious issue for everyone trying to make the world accessible and  
usable by all people.

I was struck by the range of attitudes that the WebAIM survey exposed  
towards just how verbose alt text, especially alt text for links,  
ought to be.

Alt text, as we know, is intended to mainstream screen reader use so  
that all web content is simultaneously accessible to both people with  
visual capability and people relying on screen readers, with no loss  
of usability to either group. This strategy allows developers to make  
a single all-purpose page, and may make some accessible content  
economically possible that might otherwise not be created, or might  
otherwise be created in an inaccessible visual form only.

But if there two different parts of the screen reader audience that  
are diametrically opposed in their requirements -- verbose as possible  
for beginners, brief as possible for experts -- but only one alt text  
parameter available for each tag, does this mean that having deftly  
avoided having to make a separate non-visual page by introducing alt  
text, the developer now has to make a separate page after all, to deal  
separately with the two constituencies within the screen reader  
community that have emerged in WebAIM's figures. The old longdesc  
chestnut is not a solution to this. Anyone making content in large  
quantities in this day and age generally hasn't got the resources to  
go and make double the number of pages and then have to manage them on  
the server side.

I am somewhat confused by the WebAIM survey outcome as I don't know on  
what basis I am to choose who to serve and who to thwart when  
formulating rules for alt text writing, if that is what has to happen  
in the absence of a known consensus among screen reader users.

I think what the WebAIM survey outcome shows is that it is time for  
outfits like CEUD to sponsor and promote a forum for real-time screen  
reader users (not including sighted page testers who can flick on the  
monitor any time they like to get over a tough bit of JAWS navigation,  
if they've actually turned it off at all) so they can debate  
conclusively what their collective requirements are for alternative  
text support from the developer world. Developers need a clear  
requirement. Having two contradictory requirements results in  
confusion and inability to act, however great the desire to respond to  
the requirements. The many theories about how to fulfil WCAG 1.0 over  
the years were often contradictory and unhelpful. Developers need  
clear goals and clear methods to achieve them.

It would be helpful to know what the turnover is in the beginner  
category. That is, how long does it take for a beginner screen reader  
user to get to be proficient, and how many venture on then to expert  
level? Also, how many people are joining the beginner ranks in any  
given year? One presumes the category populations don't stay static in  
membership, but are they static in size?

I don't think the requirements of screen reader users, or any category  
of assistive technology or technique user, should be guessed from a  
distance by developers, designers or other web professionals. The  
professionals should be getting their brief from the screen reader  
users themselves, but not as isolated individuals with anecdotal  
experience histories from which the easiest to accommodate gets chosen  
as the ideal model, rather as a collective group that has collaborated  
mindfully on making its own distinctive and clear call.

Simply put, the expert screen reader users and the beginner users need  
to thrash out a consensus formula for what alt text complexity level  
is advantageous to both, so that page builders can give them what they  
want. They need to debate issues such as whether expert screen readers  
should be prepared to put up with a bit of verbosity so that their  
less-experienced fellow users don't get left behind? Or should  
beginners try mich harder to get to grips with the technologies they  
are attempting to use and be more vociferous about asking for training  
and help at an earlier stage, rather than muddle along with little joy  
or satisfaction and slow their more proficient fellow-users down?

Democracy, autonomy, and self-empowerment are important. We do not  
want a dictatorship of professionals forcing undesirable or  
sub-optimal solutions down people's throats. Nor do we want to  
continue the WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 anarchy where every developer  
and every tester had their own definition of what was accessible and  
what wasn't.


Eamon





    Éamon Mag Uidhir
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
                      eamon at maguidhir.com







RESPONDING TO Mark Magennis <Mark.magennis at ncbi.ie>:



> Hi Alan,
>
> I fully agree that headings are very important because without them a
> document has no navigable structure. But in terms of just how useful
> they are, or rather how many people use them, consider this:
>
> The survey reports that 76% of respondents always or often navigate by
> headings. When broken down by screen reader proficiency, the numbers
> were 90.7% for expert users down to 55.4% for beginners. So less
> proficient users are much less likely to use headings to navigate.
>
> I asked Paul Traynor, NCBI's main user technical support worker, how
> he thinks proficiency levels break down among Irish screen reader
> users and he gave the following estimates:
>
> Expert 5%
> Advanced 10%
> Intermediate 20%
> Beginner 65%
>
> Combining the two sets of figures, we would estimate that 62% of all
> Irish screen reader users use headings always or often, compared with
> WebAIM's total of 76%. Quite a difference. This doesn't change our
> thinking about the importance of headings much, but it does suggest a
> need to be very careful about the skew in the overall WebAIM results
> caused by respondents being generally more proficient than the
> average. Incidentally, WebAIM's respondents' self-reported proficiency
> levels were:
>
> Expert 17%
> Advanced 41%
> Intermediate 32%
> Beginner 9%
>
> Quite different from Paul's estimations of the Irish population.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> ********************************************************************
>
> NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments
> is confidential and may be privileged.  If you are not the intended
> recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of
> the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify
> the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to
> delete it and any attachments from your system.
>
> NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated
> by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants.  However,
> it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are
> transmitted.  We therefore recommend you scan all attachments.
>
> Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email
> and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily
> represent the views of NCBI
>
>
> ********************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CEUD-ICT mailing list
> CEUD-ICT at list.universaldesign.ie
> http://list.universaldesign.ie/mailman/listinfo/ceud-ict
>