VoiceOver IOS 10 Safari HTML Verbosity

Yes, this is very annoying. At least with my braille display they show up after the text, but still. With speech, it's really frustrating to try and navigate a webpage now.
Also, using my braille display, with certain websites, my braille translation table switches to Unified English braille instead of US. That's also very frustrating and distracting.

Hi. I find the new level of verbocity very frustrating. It's nice to know voice over is recognising all the elements but I'd like the option to have them after the text or not at all as well.

I've not upgraded yet, that sounds very undesirable bluntly.

Well, it looks like several of us have noticed, and are not impressed with, this newest issue with VoiceOver. perhaps if enough of us contact Apple, they will consider changing it. I could live with the landmarks being read sometimes, if they were read after the text. And, i believe users should have some way of eliminating this feature altogether with some sort of verbosity option. This is one of the craziest tings I have seen in a while where accessibility is concerned.

I wonder is it universal, i.e, if you used Firefox or Chrome are you getting the same level of verbosity? I'm very glad I didn't upgrade, this would of driven me to distraction eventually.

Indeed, no mention of this anywhere, just super glad you posted about it. Even if It's a bug, it could take a very long time for them to change it based on past history, which is dreadful honestly.

I'm experiencing this too, and agree it's annoying. Who decided this would be a good idea? Is it even a bug or is it supposed to be a feature? I can't see why I'd want to know that something is an article landmark or whatever before I hear the text.

I have a game I play, (the paid version of Football Chairman), which has a lot of repetitive pop up text boxes, containing brief information that I sometimes skip, but sometimes need to listen too, even if it's only the first sentance. Many of these text boxes now contain extra elements in front of the text that weren't there before, that considerably slow down the whole process. It is highly irritating and unnecessary.

There are other gripes, but this is by far the worst. It became old in just a few minutes.

I'm equally glad that this has been addressed, since it makes visiting sites relatively annoying. I'll definitely be contacting Apple about the issue as well to suggest incorporating these elements last. I've been in the same mind frame as everyone here: It would be better if these were indicated either after what you see on a page or not at all. I'll talk to them about both suggestions and hope it can be resolved.

I find it interesting that Safari is pretty regularly an accessibility challenge for Apple. We had the whole crashing when going back in ios8, as well as mac OS, focus issues when going back in safari in ios9, even in the latest builds, and now this ridiculous verbosity in ios10.

I've noticed the same thing, and I want to shut this off. Not only does it make browsing a webpage difficult as others have stated, but it can also make it hard to fill out forms. I looke in the voiceover settings as well as the safari settings, and sadly, there is no way to shut this annoying thing off. Whoever thought that this was a good idea has lost their marbles.

While I am sorry to hear that you guys are having this trouble, I appreciate that you brought it to everyone's attention. I was just a minute away from upgrading based on other threads here encouraging us to do so, but I am sticking with iOS 9 for now. This is a showstopper! This definitely needs to be addressed and I think we should advise people who have not upgraded yet not to do so until Apple fixes it. Thanks again everyone, and I hope a solution comes quickly. Please, for everyone who is experiencing this problem, send a clear and descriptive email to: accessibility@apple.com. I normally would send one as well, but because I have not experienced the problem myself, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to describe it properly. The more emails they get, the more likely they are to take swift action.

Like many others here, I am baffled how this slipped past beta testing. You would think web browsing would be a major area of focus for most users. Perhaps this issue didn't pop up until the proper release?

Hello,

This also affects my HTML based emails that I receive and read using the mail app.

Since it’s affecting all browsers, email and some apps, I suspect it’s a VO specific problem. Hopefully this will make it easier for Apple to find and fix.

BTW, did anyone else install the final beta? I don’t recall running into this problem.

It looks like apple has done some restructuring in iOS 10 regarding speech on the web. There's mostly 2 issues being discussed here. First, more things are being announced, such as table coordinates. More importantly, container information for lists and landmarks is now announced before the text, not after which is how it used to work. I'm fairly sure this change is intentional and mirrors how other screen readers handle it, like NVDA, JAWS or even VO on the mac. I preferred it how it was before iOS 10 as well, and what apple hsould do is make these configurable (there's now a verbosity button, after all.)

You make a good point there. It could well be a feature, all be it a poorly thought out one. When you first install NVDA, it is horribly verbose, and if this is functioning how I imagine, you all have my profound sympathies. The difference of course, is that it is user configurable, and that was the first thing I did when using NVDA, it would be intolerable otherwise.

Noticed this issue on FC Pro. Wondering whether or not to revert to iOS 9 in view of the comments posted here.

I noticed this in the Blue Letter Bible app as the passage window is an HTML table. I had to stop using the BLB app because of it as it really, really distracts from the Bible reading. uVersion is a good alternative if you don't mind the social media-geared nature of this app, though some buttons are unlabeled. I ended up switching to Holy Bible by Paul Avery, even though it has a lot more unlabeled buttons because I don't like uVersion. It seems to me that the next changes to Voiceover might need to be to add the ability to turn off automatic speaking of individual html elements such as table cell coordinates in the verbosity section recently added to the Voiceover settings.

For every one of us who don't like this feature, I've met others who have actually submitted the lack of this information as a bug to Apple in the past. Personally, I can't stand it. Landmarks, in particular, are a useless element and why in the world we should ever care about them when they're never used properly anyway is beyond me. I think the only way Apple can satisfy everyone here is to make verbosity options akin to the ones we have on the Mac, so each of us can get exactly the information we want in both speech and Braille. VoiceOver's verbosity settings on the Mac are incredibly sophisticated and powerful once you drill down into them.
The problem is, this isn't technically a bug. Others have demanded this feature, and now they have it. It's a feature that some of us do not want, not a bug. We all need to keep that in mind when writing to Apple, as they're likely to disregard our reports if we call it a bug. A bug is a function that is not working as it should. This is working just fine, we just don't want it!

This does strike me as more of a new feature than a bug, as it actually seems to be working perfectly. It just created the need for an additional feature/improvement to the existing verbosity rules. The new feature of speaking the elements this way definitely seems to be impacting usability significantly, which is why in my opinion verbosity should be given priority for development in the immediate future.

Good reminder for us all, Tony. We never want to take for granted just what a fantastic thing Apple has done for us. I believe the limited set of options for VoiceOver on iOS is in keeping with Apple's ethos of simplicity, which I appreciate. I do, however, feel that we as advanced screen reader users need more options to customize our experience.

I've noticed that voiceover now says "list end" before reading the last item in a list. Even if the new way of reading HTML is meant to be a feature and not a bug, this in particular is confusing and needs to be looked at.

Agree with everyone on here. I play turf wars on my iPhone and have noticed the verbosity stuff. Don't think its a bug, but theres got to be a way to disable it. Wondering if you turn hints off if that'll change things? probably not.

This seems to be a new feature. I just wrote to Apple Accessibility describing this issue. I suggested that the verbosity section of VO settings be expanded to customize how different elements are spoken, similar to the verbosity section of VoiceOver Utility on the Mac. This is probably the best solution tooth's problem as it will please people to customize the information.

Maybe what Apple needs to do is have a series of switch buttons for Safari verbocity. You could enable the elements you want read out, and disable the ones you don't. This way everyone would be happy.

Hey Chris, it's Antonio Hernandez, a blast from your past. Hope you're doing well. Your suggestion on what to say to Apple about this problem is spot on and very constructive IMO, as was CrockerBear's observation about certain devices and his/her providing a link to this thread. I was also thinking that perhaps it would be helpful to give the ability to show or hide more advanced/fine-grain controls like this so that people who don't want to see too many options don't have to. This would be taking a page out of AI Squared's book of showing/hiding advanced options for their Window Eyes, making it possible to choose simplicity of UI or fine control over the screen reading experience. It seems that, where verbosity is concerned at least, the time has come to make something like this happen. If my understanding is correct, this is similar to Toonhead's idea. BTW, I use a GSM iPhone 5S from Straight Talk. Is there anyone who doesn't have this issue with iOS 10? Would you mind posting in this thread to see if the device-specific observation is a definite pattern? Apple perhaps would find this information helpful if they do decide to view this thread.

I use the iPhone 6. I'm almost getting used to just how much VoiceOver is now saying in Safari, but when it says "end" at the beginning of the last paragraph in what it thinks is an article.

If the behavior is erratic/inconsistent, I would say that does qualify as a bug if the inconsistencies are not device-specific, such as two iPhone 5S devices not behaving the same way in the same context.

Sometimes the first edition of a new operating system is a bit of a train wreck. This is true of any OS, and waiting until an OS is perfect before releasing it would invariably mean it will never be released. Thanks for reporting back on this, CrockerBear.

I've spoken to two Apple reps about this, with one telling me that I'd be contacted if the engineers respond. When I called in to report another bug relative to the notes and messages app, the subject was mentioned but in passing. The announcements appear to be the same on an iPad as well, as my friend also experiences them. Apart from a few things here and there, this iOS release is great. Let's hope that this issue will be fixed in the next update.

Absolutely. I not only clarified the issue to both agents, but told them that many of the changes have been wonderful overall. While I might not be using every feature, it's undeniable that the update is pretty impressive.

Yess, IM alls so have same problem, quite anoing .

I get this over-talkative" VoiceOver as well. Quite confusing sometimes and I've been using screenreaders all my life. Personally I am very much in favour of verbosity controls and other advanced options for controlling the user experience.