[NABS-L] Trouble with visual collaboration tools: Any suggestions?

[Ashley Nashleanas]

Hello all,

For those of you who are on this listserv and know me, so nice to
connect with you. For those of you who don't, I'm Dr. Ashley
Nashleanas, assessment development staff with the University of Kansas
and principal investigator for the Phase I Independence Science
Sci-Dot grant as part of the NSF/SBIR program. I'm reaching out with
the hope of receiving information and recommendations on visual
collaboration programs such as WhiteBoard and Miro, among others.

As a current employee of the University of Kansas's Accessibility of
Teaching, Learning and Assessment Systems (ATLAS), I find a lot of
blessing, and of course some stressing, as a result of being exposed
to a myriad of technologies at a time. I find it more than anything to
be a great learning experience.

That said, the company uses visual collaboration tools for the
purposes of internal project planning, among other things. A project I
proposed that got accepted, started a few months ago, and we have been
using Whiteboard for planning and tracking purposes. Based on what
I've been able to explore of the platform and several online searches,
Whiteboard feels like it would be an accessible tool for screen
readers, except that it crashes within a matter of minutes each time
I've attempted to use it, regardless of which browser I use it with.
I've communicated with the appropriate IT personnel at KU, who have
indicated to further explore the issue, but that's all I know so far.

I also have looked into Miro as an alternative planning tool. Although
Miro doesn't crash as WhiteBoard did, there are many aspects of the
program I have found inaccessible, even when trying to join from the
Microsoft Teams desktop app (where it is said to be the most
screen-reader accessible version) and enabling screen reading mode.

Mike Hingson, a good friend and colleague of mine, mentioned the NFB
did some work around visual collaboration programs. I also spoke with
Dave Andrews, who directed me to this listserv to find out more. Would
someone on this listserv be amenable to letting me know what is known
about the accessibility of either WhiteBoard or Miro with Jaws for
Windows screen reading technology?

Thank you for your insight!

Ashley Nashleanas