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Web developer issue with NVDA reading the word "us"

JarrettD
 

Hello! I am a web developer who recently started working with NVDA. I am having an issue that the screen reader is reading the button "Contact Us" as "Contact U S" (as if I was referencing the United States). Is there any way to get the reader to read the phrase correctly?
Brian Vogel
 

Jarrett,

A couple of points for your edification, then the workaround/solution:

1. NVDA is not responsible for the actual reading output of anything.  That output comes from the synthesizer of choice.
2. Another synthesizer may not have trouble with a capitalized "Us," while it's almost certain that some others will do the same thing.
3. This is probably because the synth is trying to make an educated guess for "Us" in isolation from what surrounds it.  It would have the logical choices of it being an abbreviation for United States, in which case it would choose to say U S, or that it's a typo of "us."  Clearly the synth in use is making the former presumption.

The easiest way to fix this is via the NVDA speech dictionary.  See my tutorial, Using the NVDA Dictionaries with Regular Expression Matching to Change Pronunciations (docx), even though, in this case, we will not be using regular expressions.

For step 3 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "Us" in the pattern box.

For step 4 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "us" in the replacement box.

For step 6 in the tutorial, activate the radio button for whole word.

I would also choose to activate the option to make this match case sensitive, such that only "Us" will be matched.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044  

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

    ~ Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), US novelist & sailor

Brian Vogel
 

On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 03:06 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
For step 3 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "Us" in the pattern box.

For step 4 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "us" in the replacement box.

For step 6 in the tutorial, activate the radio button for whole word.

I would also choose to activate the option to make this match case sensitive, such that only "Us" will be matched.
-
This topic was simultaneously introduced on the Chat Subgroup and additional detail was offered there.  It's clear that the issue is not with the word "Us" but "US" when the phrase, "CONTACT US," in all caps is spoken.

Thus, pattern should be CONTACT US in all caps, replacement should be contact us all in lowercase, still use whole word and case sensitive options.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044  

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

    ~ Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), US novelist & sailor

Gene
 

This behavior is so wide spread that I had thought NVDA had been programmed to send text to the synthesizer to cause it in this case.  But I finally found a synthesizer that doesn't read capitalized US as u s.  I use DecTalk with System Access to Go on the rare occasions I use that screen-reader and it reads the capitalized US as the word us.  I tried e-speak with System Access to Go and it spoke US as u s as it does in NVDA.

I tested four or five synthesizers and DecTalk  was the only one that did this so it appears this is a wide spread behavior of synthesizers.

Gene

On 6/3/2022 2:06 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:

Jarrett,

A couple of points for your edification, then the workaround/solution:

1. NVDA is not responsible for the actual reading output of anything.  That output comes from the synthesizer of choice.
2. Another synthesizer may not have trouble with a capitalized "Us," while it's almost certain that some others will do the same thing.
3. This is probably because the synth is trying to make an educated guess for "Us" in isolation from what surrounds it.  It would have the logical choices of it being an abbreviation for United States, in which case it would choose to say U S, or that it's a typo of "us."  Clearly the synth in use is making the former presumption.

The easiest way to fix this is via the NVDA speech dictionary.  See my tutorial, Using the NVDA Dictionaries with Regular Expression Matching to Change Pronunciations (docx), even though, in this case, we will not be using regular expressions.

For step 3 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "Us" in the pattern box.

For step 4 in the tutorial, you would enter (without quotation marks) "us" in the replacement box.

For step 6 in the tutorial, activate the radio button for whole word.

I would also choose to activate the option to make this match case sensitive, such that only "Us" will be matched.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044  

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

    ~ Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), US novelist & sailor


Brian Vogel
 

On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 04:18 PM, Gene wrote:
I tested four or five synthesizers and DecTalk  was the only one that did this so it appears this is a wide spread behavior of synthesizers.
-
Which is absolutely no surprise.  Nine times out of ten (more, really) all caps US is short for United States, but understood if U and S are read as letters.

Strings of all caps are generally considered to be "short for" something else.  Some are pronounceable while others are not.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044  

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

    ~ Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), US novelist & sailor

Brian's Mail list account
 

Yes sometimes you get strange things on buttons like the hotkey for it in brackets inside the word which also can be quite amusing to listen to being read.
Would it really matter though if web sites did not capitalise US at all?
CONTACT Us or Contact Us perhaps

Brian

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Vogel" <britechguy@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2022 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Web developer issue with NVDA reading the word "us"


On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 04:18 PM, Gene wrote:


I tested four or five synthesizers and DecTalk was the only one that did
this so it appears this is a wide spread behavior of synthesizers.
-
Which is absolutely no surprise. Nine times out of ten (more, really) all caps US is short for United States, but understood if U and S are read as letters.

Strings of all caps are generally considered to be "short for" something else. Some are pronounceable while others are not.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H2, Build 19044

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.

~ Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), US novelist & sailor
Greg Williams
 

Hi,

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, most synthesizers will pronounce "US" as "U S" because that is generally what is intended. Good directions have been given for modifying the speech dictionary for NVDA to get an individual's set up to read it as "us". However, as a web developer, if the idea is to add something to the button on the webpage itself so that synthesizers read "US" as "us" instead of "U S", and if "CONTACT US" is desired for visual aesthetics, then the best option is to add an aria-label to the button definition, like <button ... aria-label="Contact Us" ...>CONTACT US</button>. This will cause screen readers to read the button label as "Contact Us" instead of "CONTACT US".

Greg



On 6/3/2022 1:57 PM, JarrettD wrote:

Hello! I am a web developer who recently started working with NVDA. I am having an issue that the screen reader is reading the button "Contact Us" as "Contact U S" (as if I was referencing the United States). Is there any way to get the reader to read the phrase correctly?

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