Episode: 3783
Title: HPR3783: Accessibility, and Navigating the HPR Web Pages with a Screen Reader
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3783/hpr3783.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 05:18:13

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3783 for Wednesday, the 1st of February 2023.
Today's show is entitled Accessibility and Navigating the HPR Web Pages with a Screen Reader.
It is the 10th show of Mike Ray and is about 22 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is Mike puts the HPR Web site to the test.
Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Mike Ray.
HPR is a crowd-sourced podcast.
One show is published every weekday.
And the shows are all recorded by people like you and me.
Everybody is invited to record a show and submit it.
Any link, any subject that might be of interest to the wider Hacker community,
any subject in general. We have not only technical things about, for example,
free open source Linux, programming languages, programming concepts,
but also things like electronics, car repairs, bike repairs, travelling,
anything you care to mention, ready.
In order to find out how to record and submit a podcast for HPR,
go to HackerPublicRadio.org where you will find out exactly what to do.
On there you will also find a list of all of the previous hosts of people that have recorded shows.
A list of all of the previously recorded shows you can go and listen to the back catalog.
You won't even find a list of subjects which people have suggested or requested.
So if you don't have a subject that you can think of, you can maybe pick one from the list.
Anyway, now this podcast that I'm doing now is going to be related to the subject of accessibility,
because newer listeners may not be aware, but I am totally blind.
People that have been listening to HPR for some years will be aware of that.
Not only from my shows in the past, but also from my interaction on the comments page
and also in the mailing list, possibly.
Now I've been a software engineer for 32 years-ish,
and totally blind for the last 12 of those 32 years,
but I am still a successful software engineer.
There has been some discussion in recent months,
and there has been in the past that now and again on accessibility, on the email English,
particularly with Dave Morris as Dave is the author of many of the pages,
and the discussion may have been about the accessibility of pages on the HPR website,
accessibility in general, and the nature of using a screen reader,
how to use a screen reader, how it works, etc.
Now what I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to, after recording this initial introduction,
I'm going to set my recorder, which I'm using total recorder on Windows,
and I'm going to switch over the recorder so that it will record not only my voice,
but also the screen reader.
Now I apologise, what I sort of apologise, to people who don't like eSpeak,
because it is going to be eSpeak that you hear.
I will crank down the speed so that ordinary mortals can understand what is happening,
and I will be giving some sort of commentary in the background.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to navigate the Hacker Public Radio homepage
and talk about the various ways in which a blind person navigates a webpage,
and then I will possibly try to find the tags page,
which Dave Morris has modified quite extensively in previous recent months,
following my feedback on the problems I was having with the tags page.
So I will pause this just for now, and then I will make the adjustments to the recorder
and go to the Hacker Public Radio homepage after I have started the recording.
Now this is going to get a little bit annoying for some people maybe,
but if you're curious, stick with it, and you will hear,
you will probably hear me jumping around the page quite rapidly,
and you will hear repetition as I navigate,
thought and backward between landmarks.
Now what are landmarks actually before I pause and readjust?
Most screen readers, including NVDA, which is the open source screen reader I'm using on Windows,
allow me to navigate through to the next or to the previous landmark,
and landmarks are things like headings, links, visited links, list items,
combo boxes, check boxes, graphics, separators,
there are others, but I can't think of what they are at the moment.
One of the things I might do in this podcast is to switch on the NVDA helper mode,
and it will read out as I press each key, what that key does,
that will give you some education as to what landmarks exist and how I can navigate the page.
So this is probably likely to be quite a lengthy,
and a little bit irritating for some people who don't have any real interest in hearing it,
but if you're a web developer, or if your name is Dave Morris,
you might like to persist if you can and follow what I'm doing.
Right, let's pause for now.
On the main button.
Pause button.
Hacker Public Radio, Hacker Public Radio.
Right, here we go. Let's switch to the homepage of Hacker Public Radio.
Hacker Public Radio, Hacker Public Radio, Hacker Public Radio.
Now, I'm at the first line, which is the link to the homepage again,
and then if I hit the down arrow once,
link site, mark, mark, link, kit, domain content.
It's two links on that line, the site map,
and now I'm going to do that again.
I'm going to up one line and down one line again very quickly to get it to repeat what it just said.
Is it a link site, mark, mark, link, kit, domain content?
Skip to main content is a good one.
You might not be seeing that link,
that might be something that one of the guys has put in as a screen reader only link.
This is one of the things that you will see,
or that you will be aware of if you are an accessibility aware web developer.
Many websites contain links,
a good example being the BBC website.
At the very, very top there will be a link that says something like skip to main content,
and then there might be a link that says skip navigation,
and these links, chances are,
links that are not visible to sighted people,
but the screen reader can see them.
They will be presented to me in the form of the voice from the screen reader,
so let's go back to the top and then go to what we're going to do next,
just look at the navigate by headings.
I'm going to be hitting the HQ to navigate by headings.
Visited link, HQ public radio not on.
HQ be link, I'm getting headings level 1.
Your ideas come, a product's come, a bit in the podcast it's not heading level 2.
Right, let's crank down the speed a little bit,
as well to make it a bit more understandable for most people.
Rate 50, rate 45, rate 40, rate 35.
And I'll try not to reach for the razor blades,
which it's talking very slowly.
Rate 30.
New episodes Monday through Friday not heading level 3.
Main landmarked the 11th annual 26th our new year lead show heading level 2.
Welcome every time's own link and heading level 3.
Join the conversation on mumble heading level 3.
Pretend that weren't heading level 3.
If I hit shift H, I can go back through headings.
Join the converse welcome and with the 11th annual landmarking your ideas,
HQ HQ be link, hardly calling no previous heading.
Right, no previous heading, so I've hit the top heading.
Visited link, HQ public radio not.
Back to the top of the page again.
Now I'm going to hit K to navigate through the links.
Site map link.
Skip domain content link.
Let's hit the skip domain content link with the return key.
Or I could press the modifier keypad enter, which is the activate.
In fact, I'll do that and you'll hear it say activate or whatever the word is, I can't remember.
Activate.
Open up public radio deal to the technology community podcast.
Now the landmark visited link.
Site map link.
Site map, hash link.
Skip domain content.
Heading level 1 hacker link.
The public link are radio.
Heading level 2 your ideas comma.
Projects.
It went into read all mode just then.
New episodes Monday through Friday.
Not heading level 3.
Main landmark site map.
Heading level 1.
Content info and mark more information.
Not, not, not.
It's jumping by headings again.
Let's go back to the top of the page.
Mount landmark visited link.
Site map.
See if we have any combo boxes.
I can hit the C key to see if we have any combo boxes.
No next combo box.
No next combo box.
Hit the X to see if we have any check boxes.
No next check box.
What about list items?
Navigation landmark list with several items.
Upwards, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow link.
That's list item 1 of a list of seven items.
Home visited link.
Link upwards hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.
Main landmark list with 11 items.
Pull it upwards hollow.
Actually it's the L key to jump from list list.
Let's go back to the top of the page again.
Out of list and land.
And hit the L key.
Navigation landmark list with seven items.
Upwards hollow, hollow, hollow.
List of seven items.
I'm hitting the control key to make the screen ready.
Shut up at times as well.
Main landmark list with 11 items.
List of 11 items.
List with three items.
List with five items.
And again, I can hit Shift L to go back to the list.
List with three items.
Pull it upwards hollow, hollow, hollow.
Main landmark, navigation landmark list with seven items.
No previous list.
So there we go.
That's the list.
Now let's activate the NVDA helper mode.
And we can have a look at some of the other landmarks that are avoidable.
Input help on.
NVDA plus Q with NVDA left control.
That's just quick NVDA, that's Q.
NVDA plus double Q.
NVDA plus E.
NVDA plus R recognizes the content of the current navigator object with Windows OCR.
NVDA plus E reports the title of the current application or foreground window knot.
If pressed twice comma, spells the title knot.
If pressed three times comma, copies the title to the clipboard.
That was NVDA modifier Q plus T.
This is Y.
And NVDA plus Y.
That's not anything at all.
And NVDA plus U toggles between beeps comma, speech comma, beeps and speech comma and off comma for reporting progress our updates.
Right again, not a landmark.
Let's look at some of the things that I know are landmarks.
And NVDA plus C reports the text on the Windows clipboard.
Oh no, hang on, I'm doing something wrong.
Right, let's start that again.
Double U moves to the next error.
This is without using the modifier key.
Q moves to the next lock quote.
Double U moves to the next error.
E moves to the next edit field.
R moves to the next radio button.
D moves to the next table.
Y.
U moves to the next unvisited link.
I moves to the next list item.
O moves to the next embedded object.
Okay, I think there are some more.
Where am I?
Here we go.
A moves to the next annotation.
S moves to the next separator.
D moves to the next landmark.
F moves to the next form field.
G moves to the next graphic.
H moves to the next heading.
J.
K moves to the next link.
L moves to the next list.
Semi.
N.
X moves to the next checkbox.
C moves to the next combo box.
B moves to the next button.
B moves to the next button.
N keeps forward pasta lock of links.
S moves to the next frame.
C moves to the next frame.
S moves to the next frame.
S moves to the next frame.
S moves to the next frame.
C moves to the next frame.
E moves to the next frame.
U moves to the next frame.
E moves to the next frame.
C moves to the next frame.
C moves to the next frame.
C moves to the next frame.
So now let's go to the top of the um tax page on HPR.
Right, so now we're at the tax page. Let's go to the top heading, HPR, HPR, HPR, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP
HDP, HDP, HDP, HDP,
