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Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / CSS / June 2003Browser for visually impaired?
Hi -- Where can I find a browser that would be used by the visually impaired -- specifically, one that reads out the pages being visited? And, of course, <g> that would be CSS compliant ... Thanks, CL > Hi -- > > Where can I find a browser that would be used by the visually impaired -- > specifically, one that reads out the pages being visited? <http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing> > And, of course, > <g> that would be CSS compliant ... I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you want.  SignatureJohannes Koch In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum. (Te Deum, 4th cent.) >> Hi -- >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you > want. Emacs W3 and Emacspeak have some support for aural CSS. For further reference: Emacs W3s aural CSS support http://www.cs.indiana.edu/elisp/w3/docs/w3_55.html#SEC55 Emacspeak project http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/ JAWS and IBM Homepage Reader are quite popular. Lynx coupled with screenreader software is also used. SignatureBenM http://www.benmeadowcroft.com Ben M: >> I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you >> want. > Emacs W3 and Emacspeak have some support for aural CSS. [...] > JAWS and IBM Homepage Reader are quite popular. > Lynx coupled with screenreader software is also used. As far as I know neither JAWS nor IBM Homepage Reader nor Lynx uses aural CSS. I'd love to be wrong though. SignatureBertil Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com> Bertillo Wennergren wrote: > Ben M: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > As far as I know neither JAWS nor IBM Homepage Reader nor Lynx uses > aural CSS. I'd love to be wrong though. You're right, I guess the ordering of the answers was misleading. The W3 emacspeak combo was the one that supports some aural CSS (as noted), the other browsers though were listed in answer to the first part of the OPs question, "Where can I find a browser that would be used by the visually impaired" Apologies for any confusion caused. SignatureBenM http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/ Thanks all for the information! I downloaded Connect Outloud last night (from the same folks that make JAWS). It doesn't seem to follow standard "accesible" HTML (haven't tried aural CSS yet, though) -- unless I'm misunderstanding how this all works. Case in point: I browsed a Web page using IE with Connect Outloud running in the background. The Web page was read to me quite well. I was surprised not only by the reading ability, but by how accessible the page was already, even before making any modifications to the site. But I had one repeating problem: every time the reader hit the term "IT" (Information Technology), it would read it as "it." After checking my HTML reference and some of the accessibility documents I've been collecting, I changed every instance of "IT" to "<acronym>IT</acronym>". But the reader still read "IT" as "it." Tonight I was going to try to remedy the situation by adding the proper aural style calls to the <acronym> tag ... Thanks again for the info, CL > Ben M: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > As far as I know neither JAWS nor IBM Homepage Reader nor Lynx uses aural > CSS. I'd love to be wrong though. > But I had one repeating > problem: every time the reader hit the term "IT" (Information > Technology), it would read it as "it." Sounds familiar. I have also seen automatic translation programs treat "IT" as the pronoun, creating strange effects. Besides, how many people, when _seeing_ "IT", will know that it means 'information technology'? I bet there are milliards of people who don't know that. So when authoring for general audience, it is better to write "information technology" or, better still, something more descriptive, concrete, and to the point, like "computers", "the Internet", or "our E-mail system", whichever is meant. Well, this is not a style sheet issue, and there are situation where you virtually need to write "IT" (e.g., to comply with company's OB Policy), but my point is that _even if_ aural stylesheets worked, they would solve just a very small part of the problems caused by the use of abbreviations. Basically, don't abbreviate, and if you do, explain the abbreviations in plain text; more on this: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/abbr.html > After checking my HTML reference and some of the accessibility > documents I've been collecting, I changed every instance of "IT" to > "<acronym>IT</acronym>". But the reader still read "IT" as "it." Actually, you more or less _asked_ it to read it that way, since "acronym" means 'a pronounceable word that was formed as an abbreviation', though the W3C recommendations have thoroughly confused the issue. In reality, the browser ignores the <acronym> markup, but if it used it, the _sensible_ interpretation is that it explicitly tells that "IT" is a word. > Tonight I was going to try to remedy the situation by adding the > proper aural style calls to the <acronym> tag ... So you can save some time now. But if you wish to be an optimist and author for the future, then <abbr class="init">IT</abbr> with abbr { font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: 0; border: none; } abbr.init { speak: spell-out; } would presumably be OK. And you might add abbr.init { font-size: 85%; } especially if you have lots of initialisms, since the text looks probably better that way - some printed publications use the principle that all-caps initialisms are in reduced font size, and I think it removes some of the distractions of excessive initialisms. This could be a practical reason to add all that <abbr> markup, and if you've done that, you might as well add the aural CSS one-liner. SignatureYucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ > milliards of people I wonder if this term is still recognized. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22milliard+pounds%22 don't seem to be genuine English-language pages. Anyone remember the spelling "fount"? SignatureTop posting. What's the most irritating thing on Usenet? On Sat, Jun 28, Andreas Prilop inscribed on the eternal scroll: > > milliards of people > > I wonder if this term is still recognized. The term "milliard" hasn't been widely used in British English. Back when (within my lifetime) the word "billion" was understood in British English to mean 10**12, the usual term for 10**9 was "thousand million". By now, the stampede to USA usage is probably irreversible. > Anyone remember the spelling "fount"? Yes. >> > milliards of people >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > English to mean 10**12, the usual term for 10**9 was "thousand > million". The usage of billion and milliard has just been discussed in alt.usage.english for the umpteenth time. <http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?&selm=3EFDA68A.5060504%40ntlworld.com&rnum=3> > By now, the stampede to USA usage is probably irreversible. As the US usage is based on an old french convention and as the Franco-American relations have hit an all-time low, we should see patriotic Americans switching to milliard anytime now. You know, like freedom fries :-P SignatureTimo Pirinen pirisisi@dlc.fi In article <bdlv28$u2uv5$1@id-199094.news.dfncis.de>, one of infinite monkeys >> By now, the stampede to USA usage is probably irreversible. > > As the US usage is based on an old french convention and as the > Franco-American relations have hit an all-time low, we should see > patriotic Americans switching to milliard anytime now. You know, like > freedom fries :-P Heh! Serves the french right for liberating that upstart colony from British rule in the 1770s ... (hmmm, my mail logs got their weekly rotation five hours ago; I see some 'merkin spammer on DSL has made over 200 attempts to deliver from a forged .fr address). SignatureAxis of Evil: Whose economy needs ever more wars? Arms Exports $bn: USA 14.2, UK 5.1, vs France 1.5, Germany 0.8 (The Economist, July 2002) In urgent need of paying work - see http://www.webthing.com/~nick/cv.html > On Sat, Jun 28, Andreas Prilop inscribed on the eternal scroll: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > By now, the stampede to USA usage is probably irreversible. Standardisation is a *good* thing in languages! > Case in point: I browsed a Web page using IE with Connect Outloud running in > the background. The Web page was read to me quite well. I was surprised not > only by the reading ability, but by how accessible the page was already, > even before making any modifications to the site. But I had one repeating > problem: every time the reader hit the term "IT" (Information Technology), > it would read it as "it." Sighted people have a problem with such abbreviations too. At least one style guide recommends avoiding periods in abbreviations, with an important exception for abbreviations that are spelled like common non-abbreviation words. Thus, you would use FBI, HTML, or USA, but you would use I.T., C.A.R., or U.S. > After checking my HTML reference and some of the accessibility documents > I've been collecting, I changed every instance of "IT" to > "<acronym>IT</acronym>". But the reader still read "IT" as "it." Tonight I > was going to try to remedy the situation by adding the proper aural style > calls to the <acronym> tag ... Screen readers generally don't have access to your markup. All they see is the text the browser displays. But even speaking browsers don't really use the information in such markup, AFAIK. It isn't an easy problem to solve. Should "Dr." be pronounced "doctor", "drive", or "dee-are-period"? Should "read" be pronounced "red" or "reed"? But this is wandering way off-topic for ciwas... SignatureDarin McGrew, mcgrew@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/ Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/ Headlines we'll never see: "Psychic Wins Lottery" On Sat, Jun 28, Darin McGrew inscribed on the eternal scroll: > Screen readers generally don't have access to your markup. Right. It's important to distinguish between screen readers and true speaking browsers. > All they see is the text the browser displays. Right. > But even speaking browsers don't really use > the information in such markup, AFAIK. I think they're moving in that direction, but there's lots of possibilities, and AFAICS only relatively few (such as alt text) have been exploited yet. IBM's HPR is a true speaking browser (well, OK: it's layered on top of MSIE and a library of speaking routines, but that's OK: to the user it appears to be a speaking browser). From my recollection, case-sensitive pronunciations are supported: it would sure be feasible to tell it to pronounce "IT" as eye-tee while leaving "it" and "It" to be pronounced as the word. But to be honest, the user interface for actually tuning these things was clumsy even for a sighted user, I'd be interested to hear whether blind users actually bother with it. (I soon got sick of hearing "www" laboriously spelled out, and taught it to rattle-off "worldwideweb" instead!). > It isn't an easy problem to solve. Should "Dr." be pronounced "doctor", > "drive", or "dee-are-period"? Should "read" be pronounced "red" or "reed"? Indeed. > But this is wandering way off-topic for ciwas... It's definitely about presentation. CSS isn't the only "style sheet" language that's on topic for this group, even though it's the one most often discussed. Maybe configuration files for IBM HPR's pronunciation could be deemed on-topic after all ;-) >From my recollection, case-sensitive pronunciations are supported: it >would sure be feasible to tell it to pronounce "IT" as eye-tee while [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >Indeed. I's all down to user preference - all screen reader come with standard pronunciations of eg Dr. = Doctor as to the www you can set the screen reader to say worldwideweb if you wish However, the more abbreviations you enter in to be spoke in full the more your computer is slowed down it is a trade off - As to punctuation the setting are All, most, some and none, most seasoned users set it to some so Dr. would come out as Doctor However, if all were selected then it would be "Doctor period" Barrie, SignatureBarrie Heaton On Sun, Jun 29, BH inscribed on the eternal scroll: > as to the www you can set the screen > reader to say worldwideweb if you wish However, the more abbreviations > you enter in to be spoke in full the more your computer is slowed down Except that this is one of the few abbreviations where the full form is shorter than spelling out the abbreviation. That was my point. cheers >On Sun, Jun 29, BH inscribed on the eternal scroll: > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >cheers From a speech output point maybe but if you are telling JAWS for example to detect x and say Y that is one more item it has to scan the screen for that eats in to the computers number crunching capability's Barrie, SignatureBarrie Heaton > It isn't an easy problem to solve. Should "Dr." be pronounced "doctor", > "drive", or "dee-are-period"? My favourite was <http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Washington+Gleichstrom%22> as translated by AltaVista Babelfish. But it doesn't do this any longer. Signaturehttp://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/plonk.txt > JAWS and IBM Homepage Reader are quite popular. > Lynx coupled with screenreader software is also used. I know a number of blind people who use BrailleNote computers, which come with a built-in braille- and speech-based web browser. Again, no CSS support AFAIK. SignatureDarin McGrew, mcgrew@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/ Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/ "Nice is different than good." - Sondheim (LRRH, "Into the Woods") >Hi -- > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >Thanks, >CL The vast majority VI use IE 5 - 6 and use a screen reader to read the text on the page some of the more rich VI users also use Braille displays you can download demos of the programs if you wish However, they do alter your computers setting quite a lot There are 3 main programs Jaws being the most popular world wide Jaws http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Windows Eyes http://www.gwmicro.com/windoweyes/windoweyes.htm Hal http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk/products/hal.htm Barrie, SignatureBarrie Heaton |
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