Screen reader: w w w dot Nomensa dot com. Nomensa digital design company.
Léonie: That first part that you hear read aloud is the equivalent of what's in the title bar at the top of the browser screen. It's one of the reasons why it's really important to get a title that's unique to each page because it's quite often the first acknowledgement to a blind person or a visually impaired person that they've reached the page they were aiming at.
So if the title on a page is good and clear then it's a good indication that you've either missed the page completely or you are actually where you wanted to be. I'll just arrow down through the page because it's the easiest way to explore.
Screen reader: Graphic Nomensa logo humanising technology, dark blue lettering on the light blue background. The O of Nomensa has a dark blue square cut out.
Léonie: That's, as has just been explained, our logo and an alternative text description has been appended to that image, which my screen reader picks up.
We've deliberately gone for quite a lengthy explanation of our logo to give non-sighted people a full idea of what our brand image is about in the same way that people, you know, see the Coca-Cola sign and whether they can read the words Coca-Cola or not they instantly recognise it as being that brand name.
It's important to associate those whether you can see it or not. Through the rest of our site and on the other pages we just give a shortened version of the Nomensa logo without the full description, but it's there if you want to access it.
Screen reader: This page links to skip the navigation.
Léonie: That basically allows me now, if I wanted to, to move to the navigational links, Skip over the content and move directly to it. It's a good navigational trick, for usability.
Screen reader: Vertical bar, link about this site, link help, blank.
Léonie: Two links there that Jaws, the screen reader just announces quite clearly as links so there's good indication of what different types of content actually are.
Screen reader: Heading level 1. Easy to use and accessible to all.
Léonie: Using headings actually is a very useful way of helping a blind person - in fact, any person - understand the importance of different types of content on the web page. That was a Heading Level 1 that if I...
Screen reader: Link accessibility, blank heading level 2, link accessibility.
Léonie:...move through the page then that was Heading Level 2. So I know this section is perhaps slightly less important than the section that was headed up with a Level 1 heading. So it's a good way of understanding the relationship between information on a page.
Screen reader: Blank, accessibility without compromise, exemplary creative delivery that is compliant with W3C...
Léonie: Then text is just read aloud in the same old flat electronic voice, which you kind of get used to after a while. It can get you into a bit of pickle with pronunciation sometimes because a screen reader will do its level best to pronounce a word and quite often comes out with hideously, hideously awful results, but...
Screen reader: Tab, accessibility link, tab web design heading level 2 visited link tab usability heading 2 link.
Léonie: ...you can use the tab key to move through links on a page. So more or less everything you see on a page is read back to you with the electronic speech.
The more HTML code can be used to mark up different parts of a web page, then the more a screen reader is ablde to understand and therefore the more information I'm able to understand. Lists is another good example.
Screen reader: Definition list of items.
Léonie: A definition list. So that's great. I know exactly what I'm expecting now in terms of content.
I know I'm expecting an item to be read aloud and then its definition shortly afterwards.
Screen reader: Ten, T H December two thousand four equals link a Christmas tale about accessible shopping.
Léonie: Okay, so on the 10th of December there's a Christmas tale about accessible shopping so immediately the relationship between those two pieces of information is quite clear to me.
So it all comes down very much to using the right mark up in the right places to frame the right kind of content.