At the Club of Ministry of Testing, Rosie Sherry asked to share test ideas in five words or less. My first test idea was: use the screen reader. That saved 1 word.

Introducing the screen reader

Describing the screen reader

A screen reader is a program, which reads aloud, what is happening on the screen. This program is used by blind or visually impaired users. Now they can get their own information or buy their own things. There is less need for help from family members or friends. That saves 5 minutes or more.

Mentioning aspects of the screen reader

My first experience was reading a legal text on a laptop. It was about Content. Now you might ask which other aspects are applicable.

During the demonstration, the cursor sprung from one paragraph to the next one with a short cut or key combination. The first paragraphs formed an introduction, which could be skipped after listening to the first sentence. So, the next aspect is Construction.

During the last years I noticed, that also my input was spoken aloud. Especially the buttons with a restricted input like checkboxes and combo boxes. It is always nice to hear, what I selected. This leads to the next aspect: Control.

There are some parts in the world, where people can speak different languages. For example, I live in the Netherlands and read English. One of my apps overruled the language of the screen reader, so I do not hear Dutch words with an English pronunciation. That is quite agreeable to hear. The last aspect is Choice of language.

So, testing with a screen reader is about Content, Control, Construction, and Choice of language. This will come back later.

Finding a screen reader

A lot of operating systems have a built-in screen reader. Windows has Narrator and Apple MacOS systems Voice Over. On the mobile front there is TalkBack on Android and VoiceOver on the iOS. On Windows there are alternatives like NVDA and JAWS, which is a part of Fusion.

Did I mention LINUX? There are also screen readers available for that operating system.

How to test with a screen reader

Let’s go back to Content, Control, Construction, and Choice of language. As promised.

How to test Content

Move the focus to images. By hovering the mouse above the a over a picture. Or pointing with a finger on the picture on a touchscreen. A picture should have a short story in the alternative text like the pictures in this test automation blog post. The same applies for a graph or a map.

How to test Control

Select a button and listen to the alternative text. This should explain the interaction of the button. Some buttons with nice pictograms might miss some explanation.

Select a value in a combo box or a switch, then listen to the selected value. Check boxes in cookie banners can be quite confusing,

Check whether the format of an input field is read aloud. For example, the date has the format DD-MM-YYYY. In case of error, check whether the error message is clear.

Check the code of the GUI or Graphical User Interface. The alternative text should be filled, if the button has a picture or if a graph is used. A possible solution might be static code analysis. There are accessibility test tools, but they might miss strange alternative texts.

Find the button using the find function of the screen reader. One of the most frequent used buttons, the Logout button, is sometimes hidden in unexpected ways. Note, that a screen reader can convert text to braille, A deaf blind user can use a braille reader to navigate a web site or app.

Feel the course, Luke.

How to test Construction

Check the use of proper headings. I like to
have good overview of an article, why not offer it to people with bad vision? Screen readers offer a nice list of headings and their levels like ”heading level 3, How to test Construction”. The list of headings also gives a user a fast way to jump to the section like “How to test with a screen reader – 2”.

Is it possible to make short cuts? It is like shopping in a super market. I do not want walk pass every shelf for buying only three items. A screen reader like JAWS has a feature to bookmark a certain place on a web page. This is a time saver.

Do you hear where you are or you do? A screen reader like JAWS stores everything it said. It is called history. If the history is not clear, how can a user know what is happening?

Compare the histories of two different executions of the same customer journey with each other. They should be the same, unless the differences are the results of bug fixes. In this case a new baseline for the history must be made. Emily Bache calls this Approval Testing. There are tools available to compare text files. My inner test automation nerd is pondering about combining RPA, a  file comparison tool, and Selenium.

How to test Choice of language

Set the language of the screen reader to English and open a Dutch app. Listen where Dutch is spoken. Or choose the favourite languages of your users based on user data.

A similar test could be executed for a web site. There is an HTML tag for language.

To be continued

Obligatory summary

In the previous episode I figured out a faster way to translate Agile Testing Condensed from English to Dutch. I put the English text file on my iPhone. Then I used VoiceOver and Acrobat Reader to read the text aloud. Then I used Dictate to enter the Dutch text into a Note.

Reduction of language switching

For the translation I used the iPhone which could only handle one language at a time. I had to use the Rotor frequently to change the language of the screen reader. It was like switching a dial every ten seconds. I really wanted to skip the dialling.

Why should I restrict myself to one single device?
I could use one device for English and one device for Dutch. Every device keeps his own screen reader language during the whole translation.

My choice was to use the iPhone to read the English source text aloud and a PC for entering the Dutch target file.

Reduction of correction

The use of dictation was becoming a burden. There were so many typing errors, that I needed more time to edit the text. I read a strange Dutch word and then tried to find the right Dutch word. With four strange words in a long sentence, this was not the way to translate.

Another way to enter the text was the keyboard of the PC. No more correcting text by Dictating the text again and again. The PC had a proper keyboard, so what was I waiting for?

Choosing Fusion

On my Windows PC I had Fusion installed. It contains two programs. JAWS is a screen reader, Using the arrow keys on my keyboard I can listen to my translated text. It also speaks aloud the words I typed.

Combine this with Word. This text editor supports auto correction and spelling control. While typing I got enough feedback in case of typos. There are specific sound effects to make auto correction and mis spelling clear.

Note to my fellow Dutch citizens: Fusion is covered by your health insurance under certain conditions.

Another note to my fellow Dutch citizens: the screen reader NVDA is free, but users are requested to donate.

Did I still need Acrobat reader for the English file? Apparently not, so I started to use Notes on my iPhone again.

Then I added the translated sentence in Word with the Dutch text. On my return on my iPhone, I got a wonderful feeling. VoiceOver continued, where I had left the file the last time. That is an advantage of the cursor.

Finding the right sequence once again

This led to the following actions. The first serie was:

• Set the screen reader language to English on the iPhone, open Notes with the English file on the iPhone, and go to the sentence to be translated.
  Use VoiceOver to speak the sentence aloud.
• Set the language of the screen reader on the PC to Dutch. Open Word with the Dutch file and go to the end of the file.
  Use the keyboard to enter the text.

The second and following series were:

• Switch to Notes with the English file on the iPhone and go to the sentence to be translated.
  Use VoiceOver to speak the sentence aloud.
• Switch to Word with the Dutch file on the PC. Use the keyboard to enter the text.
  Use the keyboard to enter the text.
• Rinse and repeat.

After the first serie, I did not need to open any file, find the right sentence, and set the right screen reader language. Was this a typical case of Agile Translating?

Final edit

After a few months it was time to check my translated work. I opened the English source file in Notes on the iPhone and the Dutch target file in Word on the PC. After a swipe I heard the English text. After a press on the keyboard, I heard the Dutch text.

Come to the Dutch side.

Obligatory summary

In the previous episode I joined a group of volunteers to translate Agile Testing Condensed from English to Dutch. I put the English text in a Note on my iPhone. Then I used VoiceOver to read the text aloud. Then I used Dictate to enter the Dutch text into another Note.

Reduction of navigation

For my translation, I read a sentence in the English source file. Then I opened the Dutch target file to dictate the translated sentence. Every time I had to close and open a file. A more annoying thing was, that I had to find the location in the file.

Some Windows apps have the option to open several files at the same time. Using the shortcut Alt + Tab, it was easy for me to switch between two different files. On my iPhone I looked to the Notes app, which I used for my translation work. Notes only could only open one single file at a time.

Time to use Windows again for finding a solution for my problem. Windows offers a way to open several apps at the same time. Also in this case, Alt + Tab is simple way to switch between apps. The iPhone has an App Chooser. I could use the Notes app for the Dutch target file for editing. Another app was needed to read the English source file.

If I would change between the apps, I would be on the same page.

Choosing Acrobat Reader

Now I needed a file reader to open the file with the English text. My obvious choice was Acrobat reader which could handle files with different formats,

Note to my fellow Dutch citizens: the basic version of Acrobat reader is free.

My first impression of Acrobat Reader on my iPhone was strange. The app showed the whole page on a small screen. The words were very small. I did not need to zoom in, because I used VoiceOver, I swiped through the file, until I found my next sentence to translate. It was like driving on hearing.

Then I added the translated sentence in the Note with the Dutch text.  I swished back to Acrobat Reader for my next sentence to be translated. On my return in Notes, I got a wonderful feeling. My cursor was still at the end of the file with the Dutch text. This would save me a bit of time.

Finding the right sequence again

This led to the following actions. The first serie was:

• Open Acrobat Reader with the English file, set the language of the screen reader to English and go to the sentence to be translated.
  Use VoiceOver to speak the sentence aloud.
• Open Notes with the Dutch file, set the System Language to Dutch and go to the end of the file.
  Use Dictate to enter the text.

The second and following series were:

• Switch to Acrobat Reader with the English file, set the language of the screen reader to English and go to the sentence to be translated.
  Use VoiceOver to speak the sentence aloud.
• Switch to Notes with the Dutch file and set the language of the screen reader to Dutch.
  Use Dictate to enter the text.
• Rinse and repeat.

Another obstacle

After dictating several sentences, I read some strange Dutch sentences. The words were Dutch, but the wrong were in the file. Somehow, Dictate could not handle my Dutch sentences. And, I am a Dutch native speaker.

Maybe Dictate was not trained or tested to write complete sentences about Agile Testing. This is quite understandable, but it was a great annoyance for my translation work, I needed to check all my sentences.

I felt a disturbance in the translation.

To be continued.