Hi All,
My name is Jen. I'm a design student at the Rhode Island School of Design. I'm currently working on a project that it is all about Voiceover. I'm amazed by the capabilities of this technology. However, I think it's unfortunate that audio doesn't seem to get as much attention as do the visual aspects of web and app design.
I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share some frustrations with Voiceover, or some of it's quirks.
I'd really appreciate it!
Best,
Jen
Comments
This is a huge question. I
This is a huge question. I would highly recommend reading the blog section of this website, particularly the blog entries about each new iteration of iOS. To be honest, though, Jen, Mac OS Voiceover is much more frustrating. There are some commonalities between operating systems that are consistently frustrating, however. For example, unlabeled buttons, and Voiceover cursor focusing issues are among the most frustrating aspects of any even remotely accessible application. Then, of course, you get the apps where accessibility wasn't even considered, in which case, there's no VO feedback other than that sad bonking noise we've all become accustomed to. For braille users, the list of frustrations grows, but, really, if app developers, and Apple, themselves, did more work to deal with VO focus issues and unlabeled buttons, the things VO can do, already, is pretty incredible. While Windows offers a more consistent and flexible experience than Mac, VO, in many ways, is a cut above many other screen readers within its user interface, if nowhere else.
For anyone new to VO, by focus issues, here is an example. If I click on a link in Safari, and then press the back button, it used to be that VO would immediately land back on the link I clicked. It hasn't done this in years, and I miss it. In Mac OS, if I move to an element, it will read the content I want to hear, but then it will throw me out of the element and place me in a random place. These are just two examples to illustrate what "focus issues" means, but other examples can be found over each operating systems.
Developer frustration
As a developer who integrates voiceover into their app ... my biggest complaint is that voiceover will cut off the messages that I ask it to speak.
For example, I would like to say to voiceover, "Say this message" and then "Focus on this button".
What happens is that voiceover starts to say the message and then immediately focuses on the button, cutting off the message being spoken.
Not Many Frustrations Here
I am currently using VoiceOver on a mid-2013 MacBook Air only, and to be honest I've yet to experience most of the issues people are describing. I have, however, experienced one oddity within the past week or so. For whatever reason this only seems to happen on the website for my work email which is quite accessible to begin with. But upon closing that site with Command-W, VoiceOver has been reading part of the page rather than "Close Window." I'm wondering if this is just one of those odd behaviors that will go away on its own over time though, because it hasn't happened anywhere else. In addition, it only seems to be happening in Safari and not Google Chrome. But other than that, I've had great luck with VoiceOver and heartily commend Apple on their dedication and commitment to universal accessibility.
I agree with the previous
I agree with the previous poster. I haven't had any real issues on my end, using VO on a 2016 15 inch touch bar macBook pro. I mean, sure there'll be bugs, but eventually they'll get squashed.