Here's the biggest problem with the screen reader interpreting for
itself what is on screen.
Let's say you're reading a book on a topic that has multiple acronyms
(such as a science book, or a computer programming book).
Now, let's say the screen reader is programmed to speak a particular
text when it encounters a particular sequence of characters.
(everyone with me here?)
Ok, now let's say that you're trying to replicate something mentioned
in this book, whether it be a measurement, or an experiment is
immaterial, the point is this.
You read the text using voice over's built-in algorithm which
substitutes what you're reading for what it thinks it should say.
Let's also say that there's some numbers in this information you
require for your task.
We all know that when things are measured, they're written down in
some manner, and some measurement system.
Now, here's the real problem.
(btw, the following didn't really happen, just for reference, but it
could)
Let's say the text claims you need 2 meters of length for a
particular item, or perhaps you need 2 mililiters of liquid.
Now, if voiceover is programmed to interpret what it's seeing,
depending on the notation, voiceover may tell you 2 miles of material
is necessary, or perhaps it would state that only 2 milimeters of
material is necessary.
When the actual length required was 2 meters, you can see where this
may cause great confusion.
Or, if it said 2 mililiters instead of 2 milimeters, or 2 meters
instead of the mililiters, you might be very confused as to what it
was talking about.
Admittedly, something like this would probably be caught, because
it's an order of magnitude off, and would make the project at hand
impractical.
But, if you're working with math equasions, and nasa is building a
rocket to go to mars, a 2 meter part instead of a 2 milimeter part
would reak havoc with production schedules, not to mention, it would
probably force an abort of the mission. This would waste millions of
dollars all because someone at apple preprogrammed a pronounciation
into the screen reader that didn't belong there.
Does this make sense now?
The biggest problem with this substitution is that vo gives no
indication to you as the user when it performs such a substitution,
and you have no way of knowing it has done so. This makes it
impossible for you to know that a substitution was done, so you would
never know you read the wrong equasion, or got the wrong measurement
for a the length of something. (well, you would after you spend the
next 6 hours trying to figure out why this damned thing won't fit
into the space provided).
These are contrived examples, but I assure you all that I personally
have lost many hours of productivity trying to sort out what should
have been read, and what was actually read, because something vo said
was wrong.
If you're a doctor, or a pharmacist, would you want your screen
reader to speak what it thinks is the proper dose for your medicine,
or would you prefer for it to speak what was written, and let you
figure out what it means?
Engineers, financial analysts, stock brokers, programmers, as well as
the above mentioned doctors, and pharmacists and others not mentioned
here require extremely precise data, and when your screen reader
changes that data to something it "thinks" you want to hear, things
get broken, and in rare extreme cases, people could get killed.
This is why I'm strongly of the opinion that a screen reader's job is
to do what it claims, read the screen. Leave the interpretation of
what the screen shows up to me.
Luckily, nothing life threatening of this sort has happened (that I'm
aware of) but this reading things that aren't there, can (and I have
no doubt) eventually will lead to something of the like, and when it
does, would that make apple liable because it's screen reader told
the operator something was there that wasn't? Probably not, since
apple is so large, and unless it's another huge company of equal
size, it would never come to that, but the point is, it could, and
I'd think apple would wish to prevent that.
All I ask for is something to turn off this substituting nonsense.
If folks want it, that's all well and good, I have no problem with
that, and I'd probably leave it on most of the time myself, but when
I'm reading source code, or pouring over mathmatical formulas, I
don't want it, and in fact, it hinders my ability to work efficiently
in those cases. A feature to turn it off, or toggle it on/off is all
I ask, and I don't see why it's so mind boggling to some that I'd
want such a thing.
<--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net --->
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