On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:34 AM, Gene wrote:

People would never put up with a human reader announcing all this clutter.

I'd say that's absolutely true, but they'd probably also expect a human reader to say something about the fact that there is a figure/image present and what it illustrates as a part of the reading, unless the person their reading for has explicitly requested they only read the main text.

I actually feel your pain, and have had exactly that same feeling many, many times with multiple screen readers.  I hope that someday there arrives AI sophisticated enough to screen read the way "your average sighted person" would likely take in looking at content.  Heaven knows we virtually never look at scads of the navigation links and the like at the outset, but the main page content first.

But at this point in time, since a screen reader itself has no idea, really, of what it is you (any you) are looking for on a given page it offers "way too much" rather than allowing you to possibly miss the presence of something.

It would be nice if all of these sorts of things were arranged in "chunks" of announcements that fit a certain class, and that you could have the option of turning off the entire class with one checkbox, or going through the individual things announced and unchecking the ones you explicitly don't want while retaining the others.  And do I ever know what a PITA that would be to code, and for the user to slog through, but in any really complex system where a high level of customization is wanted or needed, this is how its obtained.
 
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 1909, Build 18363  

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

          ~ Oscar Wilde