[CEUD-ICT] WebAIM Screen reader survey results

[Tim Culhane]

Hi,

I do have a degree of sympathy  for screen reader developers when it comes
to providing    "meaningful" access to the increasing array of Internet
technologies out there.

For one thing, the Internet is a living, changing organism.  There are no
rules (at least not the ones that would help the most people) and even if
there were, there is nobody to enforce them.

The screen reader has to cope with an incalculable number of combinations of
how web pages  and other online technologies can be written.

All they can ever hope to do  is steer a middle course and hope that it
suffices.

I would be a bit nervous in using tools which "summarised"  a web page for
me.  At the back of my mind I would be wondering if I'm missing some vital
piece of information.  In many ways its like an abridged audio book version
of a printed novel.  The abridgement might be fantastic,  but you lose
something in the process.

Of course,  websites  are not novels,  and we don't  typically read them as
a form of relaxation,  but  I would still be uneasy.

Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: ceud-ict-bounces at list.universaldesign.ie
[mailto:ceud-ict-bounces at list.universaldesign.ie] On Behalf Of Joshue O
Connor
Sent: 03 February 2009 13:55
To: dfitzpat at computing.dcu.ie; Centre for Excellence in Universal Design ICT
mailing list
Subject: Re: [CEUD-ICT] WebAIM Screen reader survey results


Hi Dónal,

> Do screen readers, such as those in
>> popular usage today, actually provide the kind of access to pages 
>> that makes their navigation and exploration either efficient or (to 
>> use another word) enjoyable?

Very interesting question. It seems to me that there are at least two
aspects to this.

1) The nature of the content
2) The tools used to view the content.

Note: You could also add other variables like user expectations, prior
knowledge and technical skill but I will stick with just two.

To look at the first. While there are very many great things that can be
done in general HTML offers a limited semantic toolkit to describe content.
So if the answer is tending to the no side of the equation then this could
be a part of the reason. When you go outside of the realm of HTML, which for
all of its faults is the lingua franca of accessibility, you are then
looking at rich media and other platforms such as Flash etc. These have been
not very well supported by screen readers and it is very rare to find
accessible Flash content etc in the wild not to mention other platforms like
Silverlight or AIR or whatever the API du jour is.

This semantic gap is being currently filled by emerging standards like WAI
ARIA, which is very exciting. Waiting for HTML 5 will be like waiting for
Godot except not as action packed.

Regarding part 2. The tools themselves. For a start a screen reader is a
really, really, complex application that can take years to get to a degree
of fluency with. So I think the complexity of the tools themselves plays a
part in the equation. Support for how content will be viewed on various
platforms is an issue but this is improving. The plethora of platforms and
multitudes of offline content (PDF and Word docs etc) can be made accessible
and the same modes of access and functionality can be called on. Like the
user browsing by headings and so on. So where am I going with this? I guess
its a how longs a piece of string kinda question? The answer is subjective
and with the right kind of people in the know helping things along, it will
get better.

My 2 cents.

Josh




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