starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
StarWatcher ([personal profile] starwatcher) wrote in [community profile] accessibility_fail 2010-04-09 01:37 am (UTC)

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Secondly, I think you're confusing the speech output of screen reader software with the vocal stylings of a human narrator.

I'm sure I am. Since I know nothing except that they read webpages aloud (and I may even be off-base on that), I'm trying to learn from those who are familiar with screen-reader use.

As long as you provide structural information, it's safe to assume that users of screen reader are familiar with variations in font presentation.

This throws me for a loop. Are you saying that a screen-reader has the capability to distinguish between [1] a block of three paragraphs that are italicized to indicate a dream sequence (and therefore not to be spoken with extra emphasis), versus [2] two or three italicized words in dialog that are intended to be read/spoken with emphasis?

it's safer (and more respectful) to assume all readers have the same toolkit

See, I'm really trying to be respectful... which I thought would be to signal the screen-reader which italics were 'important' enough to be spoken with vocal emphasis. (Not using 'cite' - someone else explained why that is wrong - but using [span:italics] or [em].)

I'm sorry. I know I seem stuck on this, but I use a lot of italics in my fanfic, although probably only about 50% is inflected words in dialog. I'm just hung up with doing something wrong and accidentally making it less comfortable for screen-reader use, instead of more accessible.
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