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Mention screen reader verbosity and noise

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Rohan Kumar 2022-04-18 21:06:21 -07:00
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4
content/posts/website-best-practices.gmi
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@ -1199,7 +1199,7 @@ Screen readers on touch screen devices are also quite different from their deskt
Screen reader implementations often skip punctuation marks like the exclamation point ("!"). Ensure that meaning doesn't rely too heavily on such punctuation.
I'll be adding more tips here shortly; watch this space.
Screen readers have varying levels of verbosity. The default verbosity level doesn't always convey inline emphasis, such as <em>, <code>, or <strong>. Ensure that your meaning carries through without these semantics.¹² It does, however, convey symbols and emoji. Use symbols and emoji judiciously, since they can get pretty noisy if you aren't careful. Use "aria-label" atop symbols when appropriate; I used labels to mark my footnote backlinks, which would otherwise be read as "right arrow curving left".
## Testing
@ -1389,3 +1389,5 @@ I find Practical Typography quite useful for printed works, and incorporated a m
¹¹ LibreOffice can also render HTML but has extremely limited support for CSS. OnlyOffice seems to work best, but doesn't load images. If your page is CSS-optional, it should look fine in both.
Fun fact: Microsoft Outlook renders HTML email with Microsoft Word's proprietary HTML engine.
¹² Screen readers aren't alone here. Several programs strip inline formatting: certain feed readers, search result snippets, and textual browsers invoked with the `-dump` flag are some examples I use every day.

12
content/posts/website-best-practices.md
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@ -1183,6 +1183,8 @@ Screen readers on touch screen devices are also quite different from their deskt
Screen reader implemen&shy;tations often skip punctuation marks like the exclamation point ("!"). Ensure that meaning doesn't rely too heavily on such punctuation.
Screen readers have varying levels of verbosity. The default verbosity level doesn't always convey inline emphasis, such as `<em>`, `<code>`, or `<strong>`. Ensure that your meaning carries through without these semantics.[^12] It does, however, convey symbols and emoji. Use symbols and emoji judiciously, since they can get pretty noisy if you aren't careful. Use `aria-label` atop symbols when appropriate; I used labels to mark my footnote backlinks, which would otherwise be read as <samp>right arrow curving left</samp>.
I'll be adding more tips here shortly; watch this space.
Testing
@ -1200,7 +1202,7 @@ Your page should easily pass the harshest of tests without any extra effort if i
These tests begin reasonably, but gradually grow absurd. Once again, use your judgement.
1. Evaluate the heaviness and complexity of your scripts (if any) by testing with your browser's <abbr title="just-in-time">JIT</abbr> compilation disabled.[^12]
1. Evaluate the heaviness and complexity of your scripts (if any) by testing with your browser's <abbr title="just-in-time">JIT</abbr> compilation disabled.[^13]
2. Test using the Tor Browser's safest security level enabled (disables JS and other features).
3. Load just the HTML. No CSS, no images, etc. Try loading without inline CSS as well for good measure.
4. Print out the site in black-and-white, preferably with a simple laser printer.
@ -1212,7 +1214,7 @@ These tests begin reasonably, but gradually grow absurd. Once again, use your ju
10. Read the (prettified and indented) HTML source itself and parse it with your brain. See if anything seems illogical or un&shy;necessary. Imagine giving someone a printout of your page's `<body>` along with a whiteboard. If they have a basic knowledge of HTML tags, would they be able to draw something resembling your website?
11. Test with unorthodox graphical browser engines, like NetSurf, Servo, or the Serenity OS browser.
12. Try printing out your page in black-and-white from an unorthodox graphical browser.
13. Download your webpage and test how multiple word processors render and generate PDFs from it.[^13]
13. Download your webpage and test how multiple word processors render and generate PDFs from it.[^14]
14. Combine conversion tools. Combine an HTML-<wbr>to-<wbr>EPUB converter and an EPUB-<wbr>to-<wbr>PDF converter, or stack multiple article-extraction utilities on top of each other. Be creative and enjoy breaking your site. When something breaks, examine the breakage and see if it's caused by an issue in your markup, or a CSS feature with an equivalent alternative.
15. Build a time machine. Travel decades--or perhaps centuries--into the future. Keep going forward until the WWW is breathing its last breath. Test your site on future browsers. Figuring out how to transfer your files onto their computers might take some time, but you have a time machine so that shouldn't be too hard. When you finish, go back in time to [meet Benjamin Franklin](https://xkcd.com/567/).
@ -1357,7 +1359,9 @@ A special thanks goes out to GothAlice for the questions she answered in `#webde
I find <cite>Practical Typography</cite> quite useful for printed works, and incorporated a more moderate version of its advice on soft-hyphens into this page. With a few such exceptions, I generally find it to be poor advice for Web content.
[^12]: Consider disabling the JIT for your normal browsing too; doing so removes whole classes of vulnera&shy;bilities. In Firefox, navigate to `about:config` and toggle some flags under <code>javascript<wbr>.options</code>.
[^12]: Screen readers aren't alone here. Several programs strip inline formatting: certain feed readers, search result snippets, and textual browsers invoked with the `-dump` flag are some examples I use every day.
[^13]: Consider disabling the JIT for your normal browsing too; doing so removes whole classes of vulnera&shy;bilities. In Firefox, navigate to `about:config` and toggle some flags under <code>javascript<wbr>.options</code>.
<figure itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/SoftwareSourceCode">
<figcaption>
@ -1374,7 +1378,7 @@ A special thanks goes out to GothAlice for the questions she answered in `#webde
In Chromium and derivatives, run the browser with `--js-flags='--jitless'`; in the Tor Browser, set the security level to "Safer".
[^13]: LibreOffice can also render HTML but has extremely limited support for CSS. OnlyOffice seems to work best, but doesn't load images. If your page is CSS-optional, it should look fine in both.
[^14]: LibreOffice can also render HTML but has extremely limited support for CSS. OnlyOffice seems to work best, but doesn't load images. If your page is CSS-optional, it should look fine in both.
Fun fact: Microsoft Outlook renders HTML email with Microsoft Word's proprietary HTML engine.