Jul/090
Screen Reader Survey
Came across a survey, commissioned December 2008/January 2009 by Webaim that looks at the usage of and users of Screen Readers:
http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/
Some interesting findings that seemed to cut across a range of disciplines within the web community…
From a development point of view the ones that were of interest were:
Access Keys
Something that has been in and out of favour (depending who you talk to) for a while now. The strange results on this one seemed to show a even spread of Screen Reader user opinion but the insight suggested that it was the novice/newer users that used them more.
To me this seemed to sugest that regular/proficient web users still don’t find them of value and as such I would continue to question the value add of including them in any build.
I’m obviously aware that this isn’t the only user group to which this feature is aimed but I think I would stick by my guns when pushed on this as it always seems to require users (in what ever user group) to re-learn them for each new site. I know there are some ’standards out there such as the ones suggested by the UK government but I still don’t think from both user experience and browser incompatibilities these work.
Screen Reader only content
Another interesting one especially when compared to the responses to ‘text only content’. Screen reader specific content seemed far more favorable to a text only version which… I’m maybe a bit surprised at.
I would have thought that sites that look to add additional information for screen readers would do this a bit of a ‘gimic’ or ‘talk down’ to screen reader users. Maybe I’m being a bit hard line in thinking that screen reader users would prefer to be treated the same as all other users? That is sort of the meaning of ‘equal oppotunities’ is it not?
That said (back tracking a little maybe), I could see how additional information for screen readers could be of benefit. indeed, HTML 4 already provides an element of this with things like the summary attribute for a table. I guess the trick would be in making this content both useful and relevant without falling into the trap of simply ‘wordifying’ content for the sake of it.
I could dissect each point and put what I think around it but I won’t. I’ll let you have a look and make up your own mind. As I said earlier I think it would be a worthwhile read for anyone in the web industry from PM through IA and Design right down to the lowly of low developers and site admin*.
That link again:
http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/
*not to imply that site admin are at the bottom of the web food chain ;o)
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