[nabs-l] Google Docs accessibility

[Chris Nusbaum]

Hi Katie,

I don't have any personal experience with Google Docs, but I 
heard that the NFB's IBTC (International Braille and Technology 
Center) tested Google Docs, and they determined it to be 
inaccessible.  I'm not sure what browser they tested it with, but 
you could probably get that information from the Access 
Technology Blog, which is on the NFB site.  I learned this via 
Anna Reed, a paralegal for the Brown, Goldstein, and Levy law 
firm, who contacted me when that firm was working on the lawsuit 
NFB filed against Google for the inaccessibility of its 
applications which were used in education.  This includes Google 
Docs.  I hope this helps, although I don't have any personal 
experience with the program.

Chris

Chris Nusbaum
Email and Google Talk/Keychat (on the BrailleNote) ID: 
dotkid.nusbaum at gmail.com
Skype: christpher.nusbaum3 or search for Chris Nusbaum

"The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight.  The 
real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of education that 
exists.  If a blind person has the proper training and 
opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a mere physical 
nuisance."
-- Kenneth Jernigan

----- Original Message -----
From: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 5 Mar 2012 21:14:49 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Google Docs accessibility

Hi Katie and all,
I haven't tried Google Docs recently, but someone told me that it 
is
supposedly accessible with Firefox but not with Internet 
Explorer.
Have you tried it with Firefox?
Arielle

On 3/5/12, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
 yeah, how misleading to say its accessible and then it is not.

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Katie Wang
 Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 4:53 PM
 To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 Subject: [nabs-l] Google Docs accessibility

 Hi all,

 I wrote to the list to inquire about your experiences of using 
Google
 Docs with JAWS a while ago, and the consensus at the time was 
that the
 service is largely inaccessible.  I have been able to get around 
this
 problem by using Dropbox on certain occasions, but people by and 
large
 prefer to use Google Docs and I often have to ask for edits to 
be
 added on my behalf or for the latest version of the document to 
be
 emailed to me.  However, I recently came across
 www.google.com/accessibility, which claims that many of the 
Google
 products we typically consider inaccessible, such as Docs and
 Calendar, are compatible with JAWS 12 or newer.  In response to 
this
 seemingly encouraging announcement, I gave Google Docs another 
try,
 but when I opened any shared spreadsheet or document JAWS says
 "Application Mode On" and does not read anything else.  Pressing
 Control plus Slash brought up a list of keyboard navigation 
shortcuts
 mentioned in the accessibility page above, but none of those 
works.

 I'm somewhat baffled by this situation since I'm using the 
latest
 version of JAWS and Internet Explorer.  Am I missing something, 
or is
 Google making inaccurate claims about the accessibility of their
 products? Has anyone here had any success with using Google 
Docs? Any
 thoughts would be much appreciated!

 Katie

 _______________________________________________
 nabs-l mailing list
 nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
 To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account 
info for
 nabs-l:
 
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/bookwormahb%4
0earthlink.net


 _______________________________________________
 nabs-l mailing list
 nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
 To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account 
info for
 nabs-l:
 
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/arielle71%40g
mail.com


_______________________________________________
nabs-l mailing list
nabs-l at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for nabs-l:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/dotkid.nusbau
m%40gmail.com