Browser for visually impaired?

[Charles Lavin]

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

[Johannes Koch]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

Charles Lavin wrote:[color=blue]
> Hi --
>
> Where can I find a browser that would be used by the visually impaired --
> specifically, one that reads out the pages being visited?[/color]

<http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing>
[color=blue]
> And, of course,
> <g> that would be CSS compliant ...[/color]

I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you want.
--
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
(Te Deum, 4th cent.)

[Ben M]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

> Charles Lavin wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
>> Hi --
>>
>> Where can I find a browser that would be used by the visually
>> impaired -- specifically, one that reads out the pages being visited?[/color]
>
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing>
>[color=green]
>> And, of course,
>> <g> that would be CSS compliant ...[/color]
>
> I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you
> want.[/color]

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.

--
BenM

http://www.benmeadowcroft.com

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

Ben M:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> I don't know any browser yet that uses aural CSS, if that's what you
>> want.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> Emacs W3 and Emacspeak have some support for aural CSS. [...][/color]
[color=blue]
> JAWS and IBM Homepage Reader are quite popular.
> Lynx coupled with screenreader software is also used.[/color]

As far as I know neither JAWS nor IBM Homepage Reader nor Lynx uses aural
CSS. I'd love to be wrong though.

--
Bertil Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.n et> <http://www.bertilow.co m>

[Darin McGrew]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

Ben M <cee.plus@virgi n.net> wrote:[color=blue]
> JAWS and IBM Homepage Reader are quite popular.
> Lynx coupled with screenreader software is also used.[/color]

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.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.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")

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

"Charles Lavin" <x@x.x> wrote:
[color=blue]
> But I had one repeating
> problem: every time the reader hit the term "IT" (Information
> Technology), it would read it as "it."[/color]

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
"informatio n 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
[color=blue]
> After checking my HTML reference and some of the accessibility
> documents I've been collecting, I changed every instance of "IT" to
> "<acronym>I T</acronym>". But the reader still read "IT" as "it."[/color]

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.
[color=blue]
> Tonight I was going to try to remedy the situation by adding the
> proper aural style calls to the <acronym> tag ...[/color]

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.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Darin McGrew]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

In article <vfq4at1ostua58 @corp.supernews .com>, Charles Lavin <x@x.x> wrote:[color=blue]
> 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."[/color]

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.
[color=blue]
> After checking my HTML reference and some of the accessibility documents
> I've been collecting, I changed every instance of "IT" to
> "<acronym>I T</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 ...[/color]

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...
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

Headlines we'll never see: "Psychic Wins Lottery"

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

On Sat, Jun 28, Darin McGrew inscribed on the eternal scroll:
[color=blue]
> Screen readers generally don't have access to your markup.[/color]

Right. It's important to distinguish between screen readers and
true speaking browsers.
[color=blue]
> All they see is the text the browser displays.[/color]

Right.
[color=blue]
> But even speaking browsers don't really use
> the information in such markup, AFAIK.[/color]

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 "worldwidew eb"
instead!).
[color=blue]
> 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"?[/color]

Indeed.
[color=blue]
> But this is wandering way off-topic for ciwas...[/color]

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 ;-)

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

Darin McGrew <mcgrew@stanfor dalumni.org> wrote:
[color=blue]
> It isn't an easy problem to solve. Should "Dr." be pronounced "doctor",
> "drive", or "dee-are-period"?[/color]

My favourite was
<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Was hington+Gleichs trom%22>
as translated by AltaVista Babelfish. But it doesn't do this any longer.

--

http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/plonk.txt

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

On Sat, Jun 28, Andreas Prilop inscribed on the eternal scroll:
[color=blue]
> "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > milliards of people[/color]
>
> I wonder if this term is still recognized.[/color]

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.
[color=blue]
> Anyone remember the spelling "fount"?[/color]

Yes.

[Jacqui or (maybe) Pete]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

In article <Pine.LNX.4.53. 0306281938480.2 8475@lxplus096. cern.ch>,
flavell@mail.ce rn.ch says...[color=blue]
> On Sat, Jun 28, Andreas Prilop inscribed on the eternal scroll:
>[color=green]
> > "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:
> >[color=darkred]
> > > milliards of people[/color]
> >
> > I wonder if this term is still recognized.[/color]
>
> 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.
>[/color]
Standardisation is a *good* thing in languages!

[BH]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

In message <vfnq5ql55a5ud4 @corp.supernews .com>, Charles Lavin <x@x.x>
writes[color=blue]
>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
>
>[/color]

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,



--
Barrie Heaton

[BH]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

In message <Pine.LNX.4.53. 0306281647440.2 8475@lxplus096. cern.ch>, Alan
J. Flavell <flavell@mail.c ern.ch> writes[color=blue]
>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 "worldwidew eb" instead!).
>[color=green]
>> 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"?[/color]
>
>Indeed.[/color]


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,
--
Barrie Heaton

[BH]

Re: Browser for visually impaired?

In message <Pine.LNX.4.53. 0306291559500.9 60@lxplus072.ce rn.ch>, Alan J.
Flavell <flavell@mail.c ern.ch> writes[color=blue]
>On Sun, Jun 29, BH inscribed on the eternal scroll:
>[color=green]
>> 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[/color]
>
>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[/color]


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,

--
Barrie Heaton