[jaws-uk] Re: tip on basic navigation with ie6 and jfw7

Hi Marie:
Continueing a little from what others have said - the route cause of
this problem is indeed the design of the webpages more than jaws itself.
It is difficult for jfw to know what you want to read so reasonably
enough each time you visit a new page it reads the whole thing starting
at the top left.  Links for navigating your way around a site are
usually across the top of a page or down the lefthand side because
visually this makes it obvious that they are primary navigation while
links to lower level information EG that wich follows on from the text
on the page are at the bottom or to the right.
 
There are some tricks you can use to get past the navigation elements to
find the new part of a page, EG that which is different from the content
of the previous page.
After you have clicked on the link listen very carefully to what jaws
tells you about the new page, information like this page contains 36
links and 3 headings.  Headings especially are sueful for navigating a
page as they usually denote the start of new sections and subsections of
a page. If you hear that a page has headings try pressing the h key to
move to the next and read from that point on to see if this is the
content that you want.  Note however that like other features of web
pages that they aren't always used correctly and may be in the middle of
text, at the end or used for something which isn't related at all to the
actual page content such as for example the copright notice, in which
case it's control home to get back up to the top of the page and start
again.

Skip navigation links are also useful as Tim described as is the method
which I think Michael mentioned - the letter n to skip to the next block
of text.  You can also use jaws key enter to perform this function, what
it actually does is search for the next piece of text of more than 25
characters in length which is not a link. Very useful if the navigation
is just a list of links, less so if each link is followed by a line of
text describing what that link points to.

Another useful feature is the jaws setting "skip past repeated text on
new pages" which in theory tells jaws to start reading at the start of
new content, ignoring anything on the new page which is that  same as
that on the previous. In reality though this doesn't always work well
because once more of the design of the webpage where very slight changes
to the page can fool jaws, for example often the link you have just
clicked on will seace to be clickable while you are on this page and
this fools jaws in to thinking that this is different from the previous
page so it will begin reading in the navigation elements.
You can turn this feature on and off temporarily in the verbosity
options, jaws key v, press s until you hear skip past repeated text on
new pages, use the spacebar to toggle this option to "on" and press
enter to return to the site.

Navigating the Web is as much about developing a strategy to tackle each
page you load as it is knowing your screenreader.

Adrian Higginbotham
Accessibility and inclusion adviser
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency - BECTA
Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Internal extension #2287
Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/
BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ 
-----Original Message-----
From: Marie Baisez [mailto:marie.baisez@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: 25 October 2005 14:32
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] tip on basic navigation with ie6 and jfw7

Hi all,
Everytime a new guise of the shark comes out I expect that the
frustrating quirk I find it shows when using  i e will be a thing of the
past.
But it stil behaves in the same way for me so, now, I'm starting to
think it must be me who is not using the prog correctly.
Let me explain:
When I go on a site, Jfw nicely reads the progress bar telling me things
are happening. I like that.
Then it reads the title of the site, and proceeds to read the list of
links displayed.
When I find a link I'm interested in, I press enter. Jfw stops reading,
reads the progress bar again until it reaches 100 per cent.
Veryy good, at least it keeps me in the picture.
Then, instead of taking me to the link I've selected, it starts reading
again from the top of the screen, passing the link I selected saying,
quite rightly, visited link, and carries on reading to the bottom where
the copyright information usually is and then, at last,reads my selected
link.
This happens even if I activate the link from the links list, if I press
enter or the spacebar when hearing the link being read.
There must be a keystroke to take me directly to a selected link
straightaway.
Should I use the tab key to move to a link while on the link list rather
than tab to activate it?
Is the selected link displayed in another part of the screen? should I
use 
ctrl+tab or another key combination to get there?
I always make sure the window is maximized, don't make any difference
even when I check that it is so.
This happens on all the site I visit, except Tom Lorimer's. There, when
I press enter on a link, Jaws goes straight to it. Why can't it be the
same everywhere else?
This is such a basic inconvenience that I'm sure it must have been
ironed out by now, I have not paid enough attention I suppose.
Please, all of you out there who have the shark eating out of your hand,
tell me all!
I've trained the beast to do quite a bit for me but would like to coax
it to do a little more.
Please don't tell me it needs a few grams of the best caviar everyday,
[smile!], my moderate income couldn't stretch to that!, mind you,
keeping up with MSA must be almost as expensive I guess.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers now

Marie

p.s I use v.7, ie6 and win-xp home edition 



** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
** or send a message, to
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq



** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subjectúq]
** or send a message, to
** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq

Other related posts: