Demystifying Screen Readers

Katherine Mancuso, @musingvirtual
Women Who Code Lightning Talks at Parisoma, 8/21/12

Also online at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10OZU41H1WMPHdZrt0LGe_xWEvzAdUCd1a5Khht3DA0Y/

Transcript

1. Demystifying Screenreaders Katherine Mancuso @musingvirtual WWC Frontend ~ accessibility specialist
2. Why learn to use a screenreader? -get a high level understanding of accessibility problems so you can code better -learn about exciting & challenging problems related to audio output!
3. What it won't make you! -totally able to understand how screenreader users surf the web. -an accessibility expert That's like saying that an afternoon in a browser makes you a usability specialist!
4. What to do? -Mac: VoiceOver - press cmd + F5 http://webaim.org/articles/voiceover/ -PC: download NVDA http://webaim.org/articles/NVDA/ Spend an afternoon trying out websites!
5. Basic Usability -screenreader users speed up their SR -blind users use keyboards to navigate -lots of blind users use iPhones! -user abilities vary a lot; so do needs. -watch videos on YouTube, or meet users!
6. Skip Links -Blind users skip around looking for what they need like the rest of us! -skip nav links. -navigating by headers. -skipping from link to link. More stuff about blind user preferences: http: //webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey
7. Under the Hood -Screenreaders read the DOM, stripping the visual tags. -Screenreaders are like browsers - standards support varies. -JAWS is the IE of screenreaders - lots of users, poor standards support -NVDA is like Opera - few users, good standards support, open source
8. Some awesome problems - CSS Speech (was Aural CSS) - WAI - ARIA - How screenreader UX relates to voice input + output tech (cars, phones, more) - making new elements like flexbox & canvas screenreader accessible