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Section 3.8: Reading Order
Once you have your document is tagged, you need to be sure that the content is going to be presented in the right order for screen reader users, which is the Reading Orderestablish a Reading Order. This shows the order in which your content will be read by a screen reader. The Reading Order also refers to the Screen Reader Reading Order and the Content Reflow Reading Order. The Screen Reader Reading Order is the order in which content will be read by a screen reader like NVDA. The Content Reflow Reading order is the order in which content will be presented when it is set to Reflow View. That is organized in the Order Pane and is much harder to control. This is because moving items around in the Order Pane impacts the order of tags in the Tags Pane.
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When you move items around in the Order Pane and the tags in the Tag Pane move correspondingly, sometimes they may be inadvertently moved inside other tags.
When you change the order of items in the Order Pane, the visual stacking order of items also changes. You might end up with an object that should be in front of another object but ends up behind it, causing layout problems. You’ll need to fix the order.
The numbering you see in the Order Pane does not relate to the screen reader reading order. Instead, it shows the visual stacking order of different content layers. So don’t be misled by these numbers when you’re checking for screen reader reading order.
In some cases, it's not possible to manage the reading and display order of multiple tags. This is the case for tags that are next to each other from the Order Pane, in which case . If this happens, you’ll need to go into the Tags Pane to make fixes.
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For most simple documents, the Tags Pane is the easiest way to define the screen reader reading order. Examine the tag tree carefully and ensure that it presents the content in a logical order. On the other hand, if you’re working with a document that is more focused on visual presentation, you might have to go into the Order Pane to fix the reading orderThe Order Pane may be more helpful for making your reading order if your document has lots of visuals.
Analyze the Content
Analyze the types of content in the document and how they should be presented. For example:
A heading, even if positioned in the middle or at the bottom of a page, must be read before its content.
In a long quote, even if If long quotes are used, have the screen reader read the speaker name appears at the end, it’s better to read it first, so that screen reader first. That way, users know who the quote is from.
When content refers to footnotes at the bottom of the page, in some cases, you should have the footnotes read immediately following their content.
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