[GUI-Talk] Question about Using Google Jamboard with a Screen Reader

[Humberto]

Howdy, all,


I hope everybody is doing well with the upcoming holidays that are 
approaching.


I am hoping someone on this list can give me some insight as to using a 
service from Google which I've heard only a smudged dot about. Google 
Jamboard is something like a Google Doc, but with fancy stuff such as 
image insertion, and slide insertion of some kind where people can set 
up similar to how people sign a card for someone else for a birthday or 
something, in the physical, in person world.


I am now part of a support group in which people are encouraged to share 
their thoughts, images, ETC, using a Google Jamboard page. We are 
supposed to do an activity soon, using the information from the 
Jamboard, together over Zoom.


I, wanting to do whatever everybody else was doing, and participate in 
this new experience, I went ahead and opened up the Jamboard page on my 
web browser. I could only interact with a single multi line edit box, 
and everything I typed into it or pasted, it was saved 0 out of the many 
times I've attempted to submit anything. I was able to interact with the 
12 slides, and one of those had my name. But, they were all in these 
interesting layout with edit boxes that were "unavailable" at least by 
my screen reader's perception. And even when I read the slides, they 
were presented in such a linear fashion with all of them rapped around 
in these unavailable edit boxes that obviously I couldn't type in. Next, 
I found some buttons, an expand slides bar, and other things. But one of 
those buttons took me to each slide one at a time but it was confusing 
because I could see all slides linearly and also the current slide I was 
in, in all the edit boxes. The assistive tech trainer in me kicked in 
and said that trying different Web browsers and screen readers was an 
excelent idea, but that, also, didn't work here. I have the latest and 
greatest versions of JAWS 2022, NVDA 2021.3, and Firefox, Brave, Chrome, 
and Edge Chromeum.


I would love to be able to fully interact with this jamboard just like 
everybody else who is doing it. If anyone has used this Google-based 
service and has some suggestions, comments, tips, and other things you 
can send my way, I would appreciate it. If this web app turns out to be 
partially inaccessible, I may have to suggest a more equitable 
alternatives to the support group leader.


Thanks for your support in advance!


Sincerely,

Humberto


-- 

JAWS Certified, 2022 <https://freedomscientific.com/training/certification>

NVDA Certified Expert <https://certification.nvaccess.org>