Comments on: Does your screen reader read phone numbers properly? http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/09/does-your-screen-reader-read-phone-numbers-properly/ Spotlight on random items from the web Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:18:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: nick http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/09/does-your-screen-reader-read-phone-numbers-properly/#comment-233 nick Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:23:43 +0000 http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/09/does-your-screen-reader-read-phone-numbers-properly/#comment-233 Thanks Benjamin for the pointer and the link, I hadn't heard of this. By typing 'JAWS E.123' into Google I managed to come across <a href="http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=1195" title="screen readers and telephone numbers" rel="nofollow">this discussion</a> that seems to offer a good background to the issue. I agree with you and the general consensus on the thread that writing phone numbers in a standardised way is the best place to start. From it, a posting by Kynn on 3 March 2003 even describes a solution similar to (although far more tag/css heavy than) the one I've described above. One comment states that any incorrect reading of a phone number is 'an inconvenience rather than an obstacle'. I'm not yet convinced of this. As I demonstrated in my example above, if one section of the number is preceded by zero(s), only the succeeding numbers make it into the auditory output; as with the first example where '07000' is interpreted as 'seven thousand'. This could be a barrier and the user is left guessing - at least on Mac OS 10.4, which some of us penny-pinchers are still using ;) It might look like I'm being pedantic with all of this, in fact this started as a niggle I had with a page that otherwise seemed to work perfectly (so it's not mission critical). This is more a discussion that I hoped might benefit others and I thank Benjamin and anyone else who wishes to contribute. Thanks Benjamin for the pointer and the link, I hadn’t heard of this. By typing ‘JAWS E.123′ into Google I managed to come across this discussion that seems to offer a good background to the issue. I agree with you and the general consensus on the thread that writing phone numbers in a standardised way is the best place to start. From it, a posting by Kynn on 3 March 2003 even describes a solution similar to (although far more tag/css heavy than) the one I’ve described above.

One comment states that any incorrect reading of a phone number is ‘an inconvenience rather than an obstacle’. I’m not yet convinced of this. As I demonstrated in my example above, if one section of the number is preceded by zero(s), only the succeeding numbers make it into the auditory output; as with the first example where ‘07000′ is interpreted as ’seven thousand’. This could be a barrier and the user is left guessing - at least on Mac OS 10.4, which some of us penny-pinchers are still using ;)

It might look like I’m being pedantic with all of this, in fact this started as a niggle I had with a page that otherwise seemed to work perfectly (so it’s not mission critical). This is more a discussion that I hoped might benefit others and I thank Benjamin and anyone else who wishes to contribute.

]]> By: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/09/does-your-screen-reader-read-phone-numbers-properly/#comment-232 Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:58:35 +0000 http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/09/does-your-screen-reader-read-phone-numbers-properly/#comment-232 You could give tools like screen readers a better fighting chance by using a standardized notation for telephone numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.123 You could give tools like screen readers a better fighting chance by using a standardized notation for telephone numbers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.123

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