Screen reader with focus-based speech verbosity
View Patent ↗The amount of speech output to a blind or low-vision user using a screen reader application is automatically adjusted based on how the user navigates to a control in a graphic user interface. Navigation by mouse presumes the user has greater knowledge of the identity of the control than navigation by tab keystroke which is more indicative of a user searching for a control. In addition, accelerator keystrokes indicate a higher level of specificity to set focus on a control and thus less verbosity is required to sufficiently inform the screen reader user.
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, in response to being executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
hooking into event messaging of an operating system running on the computer, the operating system displaying a graphic user interface having an end user operable control focusable by both keyboard and mouse input;
monitoring the event messaging for keyboard and mouse events setting focus on the control responsive to end user interaction with the graphic user interface; and
automatically outputting to speech a first description of the control responsive to focus set by a keystroke and a second description of the control responsive to focus set by mouse navigation.
2. The screen reader software product of claim 1 further including instructions to perform the steps of hooking into a keyboard callback function to detect a tab keystroke setting focus on the control.
3. The screen reader software product of claim 1 further including instructions to perform the steps of hooking into a mouse callback function to detect a mouse action setting focus on the control.
4. The screen reader software product of claim 1 further including instructions to perform the steps of obtaining, storing, retrieving and implementing end-user preferences regarding verbosity settings for both keyboard and mouse set control focus.
5. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, in response to being executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:
hooking into event messaging of an operating system running on the computer, the operating system displaying a graphic user interface having an end user operable control focusable by keystrokes;
monitoring the event messaging for keyboard events setting focus on the control responsive to end user interaction with the graphic user interface;
responsive to detecting a keyboard callback function, setting a first verbosity level responsive to a tab keystroke and setting a second verbosity level responsive to a non-tab keystroke; and
automatically outputting to speech a first description of the control responsive to focus set by tab keystroke and a second description of the control responsive to focus set by the non-tab keystroke, wherein the first description is outputted at the first verbosity level and the second description is outputted at the second verbosity level.
6. The screen reader software product of claim 5 further including instructions to perform the steps of:
detecting if the non-tab keystroke is a keystroke accelerator comprising a simultaneous combination of keystrokes; and
outputting a less verbose description of the control responsive to the combination of keystrokes relative to a non-tab keystroke that consists of a single key down.
7. The screen reader software product of claim 5 further including instructions to perform the steps of:
detecting if the non-tab keystroke is a keystroke accelerator comprising a function key; and
outputting a less verbose description of the control responsive to the function key relative to a non-tab keystroke that consists of a single key down which is not a function key.
8. A method of automatically adjusting a verbosity of an audible description of a graphic user interface control by a screen reader software application, the method comprising the steps of:
hooking into event messaging of an operating system running on a computer, the operating system displaying the graphic user interface having an end user operable control focusable by both keyboard and mouse input;
monitoring the event messaging for keyboard and mouse events setting focus on the control responsive to end user interaction with the graphic user interface; and
automatically outputting to speech a first description of the control responsive to focus set by a keystroke and second description of the control responsive to focus set by mouse navigation, wherein the first and the second description of the control are output at different verbosity levels.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein the description of the control is performed by a speech synthesizer communicatively coupled to the screen reader software.
10. The method of claim 8 wherein the description output responsive to mouse navigation is non-textual sound indicia.
11. The method of claim 8 wherein no sound is output responsive to mouse navigation that sets focus on the control.