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Sandra Earl

untitled - 0 views

  • The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile.
  • The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile.
  • It’s good to also see the free, open source NVDA on the up. They’ve worked hard to include WAI-ARIA support and are becoming a key tool for web developers when testing.
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  • We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into. On desktop we have IAccessible2, MSAA and UI Automation (amongst others) but on mobile users are tied into one platform often only supporting one browser (such as iPhone, Blackberry RIM and others) so while desktop has opened up we find ourselves in a 1990’s type impasse with users left with little room to choose on mobile. Opera works well with VoiceOver but we have no way of telling if it works on the iPhone as it’s not supported. My hope is that with more users there’ll be more momentum behind breaking this stand off and opening up the market and ultimately giving users not only choice but portability between platforms.
  • It’s good to also see the free, open source NVDA on the up. They’ve worked hard to include WAI-ARIA support and are becoming a key tool for web developers when testing.
  • « Yay factor! Going global with standards and BBC Click on web accessibility Make video accessible, localised, mobile and searchable by captioning » Screen reader software usage shifts on desktop and mobile Nov 4th, 2009 by iheni WebAim released their 2009 Screen Reader Survey last week, a follow up from last years Screen Reader survey. Very good reading it makes too but of particular interest are results around screen reader choice on the desktop and increased screen reader access on mobile. For years it’s felt like screen reader users have mainly used IE on the desktop in combination with the major screen readers Jaws by Freedom Scientific and WindowEyes by GW Micro. It’s not that other platforms don’t support screen readers (we have Orca on Linux, VoiceOver on Mac) it’s just that IE seems to have dominated. As such what types of content and web technologies users can and can’t access has very much been driven by what the three software vendors Microsoft, Freedom Scientific and GW Micro have supported. This has made access to the open web a bit lopsided cutting down on choice for the end user, competition and by extension innovation. SVG is an example of a web technology that has possibly suffered by not being supported by IE and in turn by Jaws and WindowEyes. What’s interesting to see in this year’s survey is that Jaws and WindowEyes – while still the most used – have some stiff competition at snapping at their heels from open source, free screen readers (NVDA and  SAToGo ) and VoiceOver which is available with Mac: JAWS 75.2% Window Eyes 23.5% VoiceOver 14.6% System Access or System Access To Go 22.3% NVDA 25.6% While this year’s stats show little shift for Jaws and WindowEyes usage overall there is a significant leap forward for NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) and VoiceOver: Of the 1121 respondents, 74% use JAWS, 23% use Window-Eyes, 8% use NVDA, and 6% use VoiceOver. While several other screen readers were reported, these were the most prominently reported. The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile. This could also explain the increase of screen reader users on mobile reported this year with 53% of survey respondents with disabilities confirming they use a screen reader on a mobile device. This is up from 12% last year (although last year’s survey doesn’t distinguish disabled from non-disabled users). I wonder how much this is to do with the ‘iPhone Factor’ but also can’t help thinking that social networking has done for the mobile web what Kylie Minogue did for Agent Provocateur – everybody wants some. And for me at least 2009 feels like the year that we all sat up and paid attention to the potential of mobile for people with disabilities. We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into. On desktop we have IAccessible2, MSAA and UI Automation (amongst others) but on mobile users are tied into one platform often only supporting one browser (such as iPhone, Blackberry RIM and others) so while desktop has opened up we find ourselves in a 1990’s type impasse with users left with little room to choose on mobile. Opera works well with VoiceOver but we have no way of telling if it works on the iPhone as it’s not supported. My hope is that with more users there’ll be more momentum behind breaking this stand off and opening up the market and ultimately giving users not only choice but portability between platforms.
  • We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into.
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    "We're still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that's the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into."
Sandra Earl

Thoughts around universal access on mobile from Accessibility 2.0 » iheni :: ... - 0 views

  • Yahoo’s! graded browser support helps developers framework what browsers and versions they should target on desktop. This got me wondering if we need something similar for mobile. Seeing as Chris Heilmann from Yahoo! was sat in the audience I thought I might direct the question at him during the panel (also mentioned over Twitter) and being the thoroughly top bloke he is he listened. I know many larger orgnisations will have this sot of information fed into the test plans but for the large majority of us we have to figure it out as we go along. Not only that it’s such a fast changing target that it’s impossible to keep up with on your own.
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    "Yahoo's! graded browser support helps developers framework what browsers and versions they should target on desktop. This got me wondering if we need something similar for mobile. Seeing as Chris Heilmann from Yahoo! was sat in the audience I thought I might direct the question at him during the panel (also mentioned over Twitter) and being the thoroughly top bloke he is he listened. I know many larger orgnisations will have this sot of information fed into the test plans but for the large majority of us we have to figure it out as we go along. Not only that it's such a fast changing target that it's impossible to keep up with on your own."
Sandra Earl

Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog: Fieldsets, Legend... - 0 views

  • Some tips from the article include:Fieldset and Legend tags must be used together, never independently of each other.Keep the content of the Legend tag brief (the Legend may be read when each of the controls contained in a Fieldset receive focus.)In Windows Eyes, the option to read the Legend tag is off by default.Fieldsets may be nested.
Sandra Earl

Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog: Paul Boag wears r... - 0 views

  • In Boagworld podcast episode 130, I discovered that in order to help test web accessibility, Paul Boag wears glasses (that he doesn't need) and gloves and attempts to navigate through a site. Excellent idea!In order to better understand [the elderly's] experience I have bought a pair to ski gloves and some reading glasses (I don't need reading glasses). Every now and again, I surf the site I am designing wearing both the glasses and gloves. The glasses make the screen hard to read while the gloves hamper my use of the mouse and the keyboard. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to select something from a drop down menu wearing ski gloves!
Vernon Fowler

The Same, But Different: Breaking Down Accessibility, Universality, and Inclusion in De... - 0 views

  • One way to put a name to this activity is to say that we are going up the mountain — in other words, moving upward is our goal. Another is to refer to reaching the summit — the destination to which we aspire. The former says, in effect, “We are gradually making our way up the hill.” The latter says, “We’re not done until we get to the top.”
  • Inclusive design is the practice of going up the mountain — we can always look for ways to include more people and situations to our designs, even if the result only gets us a few steps up the trail at a time.
  • I would go so far as to say that it’s the scope of that task — the seemingly infinite nature of including everyone — that is too big of a challenge. We aren’t all born to be mountain climbers. But together we can get a little farther up the hill, if we try.
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    My post on the @adobe blog is up. It's about how I distinguish inclusive design from accessibility, and why you still need to go back and learn about universal design. https://t.co/OsjUp57F29 #a11y #inclusivedesign Great article on the nuances between A11y, Inclusive Design and Universal Design. Thanks @mattmay The Same, But Different: Breaking Down Accessibility, Universality, and Inclusion in Design https://t.co/QJIXT7y96T via @adobe
Vernon Fowler

WebAIM: Keyboard Accessibility - 0 views

  • Long lists of links or other navigable items may pose a burden for keyboard-only users.
  • The following best practices can facilitate efficient keyboard navigation: Provide a "skip to main content" link on the page. Use a proper heading structure. Provide ARIA landmarks or HTML5 structural elements (<main>, <nav>, etc.)
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    "when testing with a keyboard, you are not just trying to interact with the page successfully, you also want to ensure all interactions are predictable. This requires an understanding of common keyboard interactions."
Vernon Fowler

Understanding screen reader interaction modes - Tink - 0 views

  • the screen reader intercepts most keypresses before they reach the browser, triggering an interaction with the virtual document instead
  • up/down keys move focus to the previous/next line instead of scrolling the page
  • space key to select a checkbox
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  • enter key is used to activate a link
  • Not all keypresses are captured by the screen reader however. When the tab key is pressed it is automatically passed through to the browser where it causes keyboard focus to move to the next piece of interactive content
  • Although this mode switching may seem unintuitive to someone unused to Windows screen readers, it works well in practice and most screen reader users are unaware of what’s happening “under the hood”.
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