By VisMonster, 31 March, 2023
Forum
App Development and Programming
Hi everyone. I came to this site after finding this article through Google (https://www.applevis.com/blog/my-thoughts-current-state-macos-blind-user). I have been making websites for a while and try to make the navigable and give images good alt descriptions, putting in meaningful information that I think a blind person might want to know, such as the race of the person in the photo, if they are a heavy person, what kind of dress they are wearing, basically anything I think I would want to know if I couldn't see it.
But I realised I had never actually tried to "view" a website through a screen reader before. I searched for a virtual online screen reader and the top result said the web app was closed and recommended Voice Over for Mac. Oh great I thought I'd try that then, command + F5 to turn it on, easy. So now I'm wondering how many blind or other people who rely on screen readers (who own Apple devices) actually use Voice Over, or do they prefer a proper dedicated screen reader? I tried to research that and it seems that a proper screenreader has a better voice at least than the very robotic Screen Reader.
But now I'm wondering if I test a website with Screen Reader does that give me a good impression of what is it like to read a website with any major screen reader? Or should I buy a popular screen reader and test websites with that instead. This seems obvious now and I can't believe I never thought to try it before, but I feel like I need to understand what a Screen Reader is actually like to fully appreciate how to make my websites accessible.
Like if I have a link that just says "Buy now on Amazon", is it obvious to the blind user that what they will be buying is the novel described just above the link? And if an image is of a move cover, do I need to start the alt tag with "DVD cover...", I guess saying that out loud I obviously do need to say that.
Anyway it's easy to get a 100/100 score on Google PageSpeed Insights for accessibility. But I think I should probably go beyond that and make the site actually nice and useful to use for blind users. Which is why I want to know if Screen Reader is a good enough experience to know what a website is like to navigate and read with a screen reader in general.
Thanks for your time and any insight you can provide.
Comments
I have so much to expound upon here :)
First off, you want your live regions not to refresh, that makes reading down a page nearly impossible on any screen reader no mater what. Second you want edit fields clearly labeled, name, even the required function so that we know, I need to put my name here. If you put the alt tag there, on fields with a * on it, that denotes our ability to put in things lke cc info and the like. you also want to make great use of popup buttons. they are easier to interact with then list boxes, because once inside, I may not be able to go down to my state of Florida instead of just selecting the top choice. Your descriptions of dress, skin color and things are very helpful and I thank you for that. The "accessibility" menus that are out are just a kind of pain in the butt. I'm trying to read when a popover says push option 1 for the menu and for what? Most of the people using it know how to use links, headings form controls and text fields. Make sure any video content has a play button that doesn't just say button, alt text to the rescue. Radio buttons work well, alt text to make sure the selection values are read propperly. so it can either say dark circle, versus female radio button checked. As for using the screen reader versus a built in one, i used to spend tons of money every year on Jaws but though the initial price tag is high, I have a built in way to use the computer. It's not perfect, hell no but it is usable. That's on apple and their lovely ideas of hey we built it now on to other shiny stuff. I'll also contact you off list with a few other things. Hope i wasn't to long winded. I didn't see your contact info, feel free to contact me if you wish so I can help.
Firstly thanks.
Firstly a huge thank you for your consideration, its interesting you zero'd in on the identifying features of a photo you might like to know as in general blind people get descriptions that are missing all this vital information sighted people can just see. We might get a description like person wearing a blue top or something but that didn't give us any information about the person. I understand why people and automated photo analysis tools don't like to do this but its completely useless to the person its designed for. To answer your question about screen readers, Voiceover is the only screen reader on mac, iPhone and iPad. Windows has various screen readers like JAWS, NVDA and Narrator. Thanks so much for your consideration and engaging with people who can tell you what would be useful instead of using established standards which very often fall far short.