[ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?

MessageHi Jamal,

"As a blind user, placement
can actually be irrelevant, having  no effect on functionality."

Based on psychology, semiotics and communications theory, I would have to 
disagree with that statement.  A control's relationship to other controls and 
it's absolute positioning can be sources of semantic information about that 
control's functionality.  For example. buttons grouped together may have 
similar functionality, buttons placed next to a list box may perform an action 
on that list box or it's selected index.  On the web, a row of links placed in 
vertical alignment at the top of a page are often used as a quick navigational 
group of links.

So. spatial relationships and absolute positioning can add a lot of meaning 
regarding functionality beyond that conveyed by a simple text label.  Users 
can, and often do, work out the full semantic nature of a control, but this is 
often through trying out the control and seeing what it does, which is 
inefficient at best, and possibly disasterous at worst, imagine deleting 
something that you didn't actually mean to delete.

Will
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jamal Mazrui 
  To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 2:41 PM
  Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?


  Just an observation to share.

  In trying to program dialog boxes under Windows, I have experienced the 
situation where something I developed worked well with a screen reader, yet I 
subsequently discovered that it was almost unusable for a sighted person.  A 
screen reader can tab from one control to another, and as long as each control 
is properly labeled and otherwise voicing as one would expect at the time it 
has focus, then the controls in the dialog serve their purpose.  It may be the 
case, however, that the controls are placed in visually peculiar, unbalanced, 
or overlapping places on the screen, thus making the dialog difficult for a 
sighted user.

  As a blind developer, I need to know the location of controls so that I can 
meet the needs of both sighted and blind users.  As a blind user, placement can 
actually be irrelevant, having  no effect on functionality.

  Regards,
  Jamal
  -----Original Message-----
  From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lyn Eagers
  Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:19 PM
  To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: What Is A Screen Reader?


  Hi Will and Others,

  Will, I found your description of what a screen reader is quite interesting.  

  I train people to use screen readers and, from my experience, some blind folk 
are interested in where things are on the screen (spacial perception) and 
others are not.  In particular, those who have had sight and were extremely 
visual people find it important to know where things are.  Some, and I say 
some, so therefore not all, long term blind people don't seem to be interested 
in the spacial factor.

  I am a long term blind person and have always tried to grasp a mental picture 
of what is on the screen and where - probably because I teach both kinds of 
blind people and sometimes assist sighted folk.

  Anyhow, I thought I'd share my experiences with you.

  Cheers,
  Lyn

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Will Pearson 
  To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ; uvip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 11:58 AM
  Subject: [ossrp-control] What Is A Screen Reader?


  Hi,

  I thought I'd share my, rather academic, view of what a screen reader is.  It 
offers a little glimmer into what screen readers could potentially do, and some 
of the pitfalls that the current crop of screen readers have fallen into.  All 
this is from the viewpoint of human computer interaction, psychology and 
communications theory.

  OK.  So, what is a screen reader?  Well, it's actually a lot more than people 
often assume it is.  It's not just something that grabs the text from the 
screen and reads it to you, well, at least it shouldn't be, it is in fact the 
interface by which user and machine communicate semantic meaning, relating to 
thoughts, concepts, actions and states.

  So, how did I arrive at this view?  As some of you may know, I've been 
researching into semantics and their role in software interfaces for a while 
now.  During this time, it's become apparent that software interfaces are just 
intended to communicate semantic meaning, but as we're not capable of extr 
sensory perception and telepathy with the computer, we need some way to 
indicate our thoughts, concepts, actions, etc. to the computer, and vice versa. 
 The way this is visually done is by placing elements on the screen, such as 
icons, buttons, etc. and having their shape, colour, position on screen and 
relationships to one another act as encoding channels by which the semantic 
meaning is conveyed.  Users then just point to an object, conveying the 
semantics of which element they would like to interact with, and either click 
it or select an action to perform on it from a menu.  All this is just a form 
of physical encoding of the semantic meaning between user and machine and vice 
versa.

  So, as a screen reader is a replacement for the visual interface, it's role 
is simply to act as an interface between user and machine and convey the 
semantic meaning generated by the machine.  However, there's a nasty twist, and 
that is that a screen reader has to get the semantic meaning that it is to 
communicate to the user from somewhere.  As the screen reader has no access to 
the internals of the machine, it's only available source of semantics that the 
machine wishes to convey is the visual interface, which uses encoding 
techniques such as colour, shape, position and spatial relationship to convey 
it's semantics.  So, a screen reader should really be about extracting the 
semantics from the visual display and encoding them in a non-visual form 
suitable for a blind user, and this is where current screen readers fall down.  
To maintain accurate and efficient communication with the user, all the 
semantics that are conveyed visually need to be conveyed to the user.  This 
includes things like spatial positioning and spatial relationships between 
interface elements, things that are currently lost to the user when they are 
using one of the current screen readers.  If this were to happen, then the 
number of errors, and according back-tracks and reissuing of commands that go 
along with errors, would decrease, and screen reader users would be more 
efficient beasts.

  I haven't gone into design specifics, as they're for another day, and these 
can dramatically affect efficiency as well, but that's my thoughts of what a 
screen reader should be doing.  In focusing on the semantics, then it's likely 
that through the use of semantic translation access to all those difficult 
accessibility problems could be increased.

  Will

Other related posts: