[nfbcs] My Opinion and Experiences with Accessibility

[Rasmussen, Lloyd]

One of my co-workers reports that Window-Eyes 8.4 is working as well as JAWS does on Freedom Scientific's "surf's Up" demo pages, which use ARIA features.  I didn't ask him which version of IE this was.  Window-Eyes works reasonably well with Firefox and IE.  There are some rough edges, sometimes including an inability to read the web page with the mouse pointer (equivalent to the JAWS cursor).  

People can code web pages as  rich internet applications, but the "accessible" part of ARIA may be done half-heartedly or with minimal understanding of the functionality of roles and states.  On Facebook I see landmarks scattered around willy-nilly, depending on the whims of some software in their system.  Even if we had text-only web pages, people would still make them dynamic.  This became evident when JavaScript was introduced almost 20 years ago.  And we must not lose sight of the fact that access by mobile apps is becoming as important as access to web content.

Putting on my NFB hat for a minute, the NFB of Maryland is pushing state legislation that would do a study on the concept of adding accessibility to computer science and IT curricula in the universities across the state.  Jonathan Lazar is involved in this initiative.  Like most things that are legislated, it takes years for the fruit to become apparent, but we have come to the conclusion that working at accessibility only from an enforcement standpoint doesn't change the climate enough.  We can point to accessibility guidelines from Sun/Oracle, Microsoft, the Gnome Foundation, Apple, Google and the Worldwide Web Consortium, but if they remain on the shelf they won't change our access to information very much.

End soapbox.  These opinions are my own, and not necessarily those of the Library of Congress.

Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress   202-707-0535
http://www.loc.gov/nls
The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress, NLS.


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Nicole Torcolini
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 8:11 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] My Opinion and Experiences with Accessibility

I have not used Windows Eyes, but I have heard that it does not work that well with the other browsers either. 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Rasmussen, Lloyd
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 6:07 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] My Opinion and Experiences with Accessibility

And Chrome doesn't work at all with Window-Eyes.  You must use Chromevox or NVDA, I guess.

Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Project Engineer National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress   202-707-0535
http://www.loc.gov/nls
The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress, NLS.


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Nicole Torcolini
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 9:37 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] My Opinion and Experiences with Accessibility

Chrome works better with NVDA or ChromeVox than with JAWS, but that is Freedom Scientific's fault. Although this is not always the case, usually, if something works with NVDA but not with JAWS, then it is because Freedom Scientific left something out or is doing something wrong.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jim Barbour
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 5:13 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] My Opinion and Experiences with Accessibility

I think the question is valid.

Firefox does support accessibility.  I will say that some pages that work with firefox don't work with IE and vice versa.

What are people's experiences with windows chrome?

Jim