[Plaintext: I have a Screen Reader Question! /End P.T.]
I added Screen Reader for Google Chrome to my browser to quality check my posts before posting them, so I can hear what it will sound like with it.
This screen reader is having no troubles reading different fonts and heading styles and bold or italics, which means that the plaintext is just really repetitive when it already read it just fine.
It also reads emojis like 😊 and 😁 as smile and grin respectively. So the plaintext that I've been putting after them again feels very repetitive.
My very genuine questions are if the majority of screen readers are like this? Should I be doing the emojis and plaintext differently or at all? If plaintext isn't for screen reader users than who is it for? Please let me know.
I want this blog to be as accessible as possible and I am always striving to learn more, so please share this so that people who use screen readers and/or need plaintext for other reasons can see it and let me know what works best for them!
-R.
@this-is-disabled-joy
@this-is-solidarity
I can't think of any more blogs that may be able to help as well right now, but again please share and let me know!
How much do spelling mistakes impact you as someone who uses a screenreader and has vision problems? Are acronyms difficult? How about slang shortening of words, like "notifs", shortened form of notifications? Do you have any other language comprehension related preferences or needs?
Disclaimer
I am not blind or visually impaired. I use a screenreader because of neurological symptoms that make it hard for me to access technology. I have different experiences to blind and visually impaired people
This is just my experience. If you have a different experience, please add it on! If you don't use a screenreader, please don't talk over those who do
No advice please. No comments on how my screenreader voice sounds. No advice on how I can improve my reading. No advice.
If you have questions, please send them to my inbox or ask them in the notes! But please format them accessible to me
I use Claro Read, a software I got through the DSA. I can't recommend software to you.
Spelling mistakes/typos
They do impact my screenreader. I can understand them though, mostly, especially in context
It is good practice to try and proofread writing, but a singular typo is probably not catastrophic to a screenreader user
I will say that I'm usually reading along with the screenreader rather than fully relying on it. I can't speak for blind or visually impaired people that can't see the screen; it's probably more of an impact there
Acronyms
You can hear on the video that acronyms are read differently depending on how they're typed. "LOL" is pronounced as a word, but when each letter is separated, each letter is individually read.
I'm okay with most acronyms. I google ones I don't know. Same with slang I don't understand
Other
On the topic of screenreaders. Everyones screenreader voice is specific to them. It took me ages to adjust the voice to exactly what I need in terms of accent, pitch, speed, etc
I thought this was common knowledge but apparently a lot of people think there's one singular screenreader voice that everyone uses
I find it really difficult to read long blocks of text. As you can tell, I only put one or two sentences per paragraph, otherwise I find it too exhausting to read
I also need extra wide line spacing – 1.5 or double spacing is the easiest for me to read. Most sites suck at this. I compensate with following text with my finger or with a ruler (either virtual or physical)
I find it easiest to read black on light blue. At least font size 14 in Arial or Bold Open Dyslexic
Text effects like italics is really difficult for me to read. Bold text is hit or miss. Coloured text on this site is the bane of my existence and I refuse to read posts with coloured text
Simple, short sentences work the best for me. I'm not sure if I'm always grammatically correct, but I'm understandable, which is the most important thing to me.
Actual footage of my screenreader
A lot of people don't know what using a screenreader is actually like. There are lots of different set ups depending on needs and uses
I typed up a sample text to show what a screenreader might sound like with a few styles of writing.
Video transcript under cut.
Video transcript
This is how my screen reader sounds. To address some questions in the ask:
How much do speling mistakes impcat a screen reader uesr? It depends, really. In general, I can understnad misakes, ispecially when its just a case of swapped letrs. You can probley follow along with this just fine dispite all the typos and spelling mestakes I added in afterwards. Ti sunds a bit goofy but alas.
Autocorrect really hated how many typos I was adding in, haha.
Well bro slang is interesting cos when the screen reader encounters a word it doesn’t “know,” it sorta has to guess how it’d be pronounced, lol. BTW, acronyms are read differently depending on the acronym and what letters are used.
When an acronym kinda looks like a word, cos TBH, “LOL” does look a bit like an actual word, it reads it as one. But as u can probably tell from listening to this, other acronyms r read letter by letter. If ya want LOL to be read as individual letters, u gotta put full stops between the letters. It looks a bit like how people on Facebook type, L.O.L.
Not included in the ask, but this is why I ask people not to use text emoticons around me :) ∥(´。＿。｀) Some screen readers are smart enough to read colon-right-parentheses as a smiley face ^u^ But most either skip the punctuation xP or read random letters ⊙﹏⊙
If you were just listening to this, not seeing the symbols, would you understand? (+_+)
Here is how a piece of real text sounds like. It’s the first paragraph on Wikipedia about Alice in Wonderland, my favourite book 😊
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (also known as Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.
learning to use a screenreader for long text when words are bad and lots of them are overwhelming and learning to be less afraid of “stealing resources” or “mocking the “actually” disabled”
our partner is blind and uses a screenreader and it gives us so much anxiety because like. “well they actually need it, but we can see enough to not need it” dude we LITERALLY have a processing disorder and other language neurodivergencies. :/ plus using it doesn’t take away from their ability and/or right to use it either
sidenote: we downloaded an AAC app the other night to use maybe sometimes because we learned The Hard Way that singing for too long can actually affect your ability to speak without pain and discomfort (thanks Rowan /sys) so that’s been helpful. again, learning that we’re not a bad person& for using accessibility tools when we’re literally disabled and neurodivergent Challenge. /silly
There will be two versions of this zine to make it as accessible as possible. Please do not hesitate to message me if you have thoughts on how to make this zine even more accessible. I deeply care about that, but I have very little experience and limited knowledge that I'm always ready to expand on.
The purple version is written in the dyslexia-friendly font "OpenDyslexic". The text is black on a pale purple background. It has short image descriptions.
The white version is meant to be screenreader-friendly and high contrast. It is written in the font "Verdana". The text is black on a white background. It has more detailed image descriptions and is arranged in a way that is easy to understand using a screen reader.
