[Trainer-Talk] From My Blog: No Headings On Web Sites Containing Job Listings? A Problem, Indeed

Mon Feb 17 15:52:21 UTC 2020

Thanks David
Unfortunately, we have a terrible trend with people designing sites--etc.
all with lower case. This is an English issue also.

* Dr Denise M Robinson*

*Denise M Robinson, TVI, PhD*

Specialist-Technology/Blind Skills | Teacher of the Blind and Visually
Impaired
425-220-6935 | www.yourtechvision.com
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we
created them.” --Albert Einstein

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“Helping the visually impaired see their world changed through technology”
"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done."
--Helen Keller

On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:54 AM David Goldfield via Trainer-Talk <
trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> I am posting my latest blog post to this list as some of you may be
> providing training to consumers in the use of Web sites which specialize
> in job listings, such as Indeed and CareerBuilder.
>
>
>
>     Introduction and Explanation
>
> I am noticing what may be a new and problematic trend in the way that
> Web sites which offer career listings are displaying their search
> results, which can have a negative impact on users of screen readers.
>
> In order to provide a familiar comparison most of us have likely
> navigated search engines with a screen reader. As an example, when you
> perform a search on Google you probably know that you are able to
> navigate the results page by moving from one heading to the next, which
> is accomplished by pressing the letter H when using the majority of
> screen readers. As each search result contains a heading tag you can
> simply press the letter H to move from one search result to the next.
> Pressing shift+h allows you to navigate in reverse. This is not the only
> way to navigate a page containing search results but it is probably one
> of the most efficient methods which can be used.
>
> For years, the majority of Web sites which specialize in job listings
> used the same markup on their results page. I have used these sites for
> over a decade and many of them allowed heading navigation to be used.
> This was, as you can imagine, extremely convenient as you could easily
> and quickly move from one search result to the next.
>
>
>       Indeed.com
>
> Indeed
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indeed.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617192932&sdata=ChBKHcgMj1INUqgnlGxx5IfhN5FG%2B02cYppDCeHc2dA%3D&reserved=0>
>
> is a well-known site which allows you to search for, browse and apply
> for open positions. It had always used headings to separate one job
> listing from another, allowing a screen reader user to quickly navigate
> from one job listing to the next.
>
> A few weeks ago I noticed that heading navigation was no longer an
> option when navigating the search results on this Web site. The links
> themselves were accessible and my screen reader could speak them with no
> difficulty but headings had disappeared in the search results. This is
> problematic for several reasons.
>
> First, they do allow filtering options to be navigated by heading.
> Therefore, pressing H to move forward through headings will take you to
> options such as salary estimate, job type, location, company, etc. At
> the time of this writing the last heading on an Indeed.com search
> results page is Experience Level. If you press H again you will either
> be told that no more headings exist or, if you’re using JAWS with its
> default settings enabled, you will be wrapped back to the top and your
> focus will be placed at the first heading on the page, which will be a
> level 1 heading containing the beginning of the main content. Users who
> are not expecting this behavior will find this a bit surprising and
> somewhat disconcerting.
>
> Here is how you have to locate the first search result on the page with
> its current implementation. First, you have to navigate to the last
> heading on the page, which is Experience Level. The quickest way to do
> this is to press ctrl+end to move your virtual cursor to the bottom of
> the page and then press shift+H, which moves your cursor to the last
> heading on the page. Next, move down by several links and you will
> eventually find the link containing the first job listing, above the
> words “page 1 of xxx jobs” where xxx contains the amount of total pages
> containing your results. You could also move to the top of the page and
> search for the word “page” which would likely take you to the “page x of
> xxx jobs” text. The point I’m trying to make is that neither of these
> options are obvious, intuitive or efficient and screen reader users
> should not have to do this in order to efficiently navigate a page
> containing search results.
>
> At the risk of belaboring this point even further navigation is also not
> efficient because, since I can no longer navigate by headings to jump
> from one result to the next, I am now forced to navigate from one link
> to the next and each job listing is comprised of four links, such as the
> job title, the name of the company, the page containing reviews of that
> company and a link for saving the job. The link containing reviews is
> also poorly labeled, with a title like “3.6”, which I assume is the
> average of the amount of ratings the company received. It goes without
> saying that I should not have to navigate four links to move from one
> search result to the next and I felt that contacting Indeed Support was
> in order.
>
>
>       Contacting Indeed Support
>
> I sent Indeed a tweet and asked them to reinstate heading navigation.
>
> “@Indeed
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.easychirp.com%2Fuser%2FIndeed&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617202928&sdata=lY5KwgPb1pZYDGJuRj2HW%2BkHLSDtKtsze8uWTd0%2BKrc%3D&reserved=0> You
>
> recently removed headings which were located at the beginning of each
> job listing in the search results. This change makes navigation with a
> screen reader a bit more inefficient. Would you please reinstate
> headings to allow for heading navigation?”
>
> Here is the response I received from @indeedsupport.
>
> “@DavidGoldfield
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.easychirp.com%2Fuser%2FDavidGoldfield&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617212926&sdata=cf9icsE%2FX8hLFwKNUa0MOxVx7fVuo40CotuplX9MEpM%3D&reserved=0> Hi
>
> David, you could visit our website through an incognito/private window
> and it will bring up the previous layout. ^DR”
>
> This response is, in my opinion, almost laughable and is hardly what I
> would call a reasonable solution. I wrote back with the following
> response, comprising two separate tweets.
>
> “@IndeedSupport 1/That's good to know but most users aren't going to
> think of launching your site in incognito mode just to have an interface
> that uses heading navigation. Can't you offer this as an option? It
> makes it easier to navigate from one search result to the next.”
>
> “@IndeedSupport 2/Most Web sites displaying search results group each
> result by heading. I'm sorry but it just isn't reasonable to tell a
> screen reader user that they must launch a site using incognito mode in
> order to have this capability.”
>
> Here is their response.
>
> “@DavidGoldfield We appreciate you sharing this feedback with us, David.
> While our team does not have a way to change the layout we can assure
> you we will pass this feedback over to our team internally. ^TC”
>
> I think that what they were trying to convey was that the support team
> was unable to change the layout of the site but that they would send my
> feedback to the appropriate team that could make the necessary change.
>
>
>       Careerbuilder Is Even Worse
>
> I decided to visit other sites containing job listings just to prove
> that similar Web sites list their search results by headings. I was in
> for a bit of a surprise.
>
> Not only did the search results for Careerbuilder
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.careerbuilder.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617222933&sdata=ffw14BFsoxYFjXW8PZg49YVK8DQ2dHhpg%2FvsI4n65b8%3D&reserved=0>
>
> not contain headings to separate one listing from the next but the
> actual links for the job listings were not consistently being identified
> as links when using JAWS. When I move link by link using JAWS 2020 with
> the “any link” hotkey (undefined by default) I was unable to locate the
> links containing a label with the job listing. If I moved line by line
> the links were identified when I moved to them with up arrow but
> navigating with down arrow just read the link as nonactionable plain
> text. The “any link” hotkey did locate links to the job listing page but
> those links were not properly labeled. No headings existed to separate
> one search result from the next.
>
>
>       Monster: An Example of A Results Page Done Correctly
>
> Thankfully, Monster’s
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monster.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617232928&sdata=u4JGjocJMOrs2XnakTIcVn3Tq2ckxLrNucJbjBuGrQU%3D&reserved=0>
>
> search result page is nicely laid out, allowing me to move from one
> search result to the next with heading navigation. JAWS detected a
> read-only field for entering a job title on the main page prior to the
> actual edit box for entering this information which did confuse me but,
> overall, the site is navigable.
>
>
>       What Can We Do?
>
> If you feel that these issues are important I am asking that you contact
> Indeed and Careerbuilder to alert them of these problems and to let them
> know that heading navigation needs to be reinstated on search result
> pages to ensure quick and efficient navigation for users of screen
> readers. While we need to keep these messages polite and respectful we
> also need to remember that these are not feature requests and our
> messaging should indicate the necessity of heading navigation.
> Accessibility is a necessity and not a feature or an option. Here is
> some contact information for these sites.
>
>
>         Indeed
>
> Twitter: @indeedsupport
>
> Contact Form (which also contains no level 1 heading to quickly move to
> the main content)
>
> https://www.indeed.com/support/contact?hl=en
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indeed.com%2Fsupport%2Fcontact%3Fhl%3Den&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617242909&sdata=nHs0OE%2BuJBVMWRQkNUMb%2BuJ1nsaelCR2X%2FeNMhEFgl0%3D&reserved=0
> >
>
>
>         Careerbuilder
>
> Twitter: @CareerBuilder
>
> Contact Form (also containing no headings)
> https://www.fuzeqna.com/careerbuilder/consumer/question.asp
> <
> https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fuzeqna.com%2Fcareerbuilder%2Fconsumer%2Fquestion.asp&data=02%7C01%7C%7C63f63480520443a3cdd408d7b3b8927e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637175477617252907&sdata=JEC5qs9ECpBYhZ8wHGS6TdHlhsC4fTuTfT4KOiU0urg%3D&reserved=0
> >
>
>
>     Conclusion
>
> I have not visited other career Web sites to see if their results pages
> are using headings. It is possible that Indeed and Careerbuilder are in
> the minority when it comes to this oversight. However, even if this is
> true these two sites are major, well-known players in the job listings
> space and it is critical that blind job seekers have proper access to
> them. I am hoping that if enough people contact these organizations to
> respectfully express their concerns this problem may well be quickly and
> satisfactorily resolved.
>
> --
> David Goldfield,
> Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
> JAWS Certified, 2019
>
> WWW.DavidGoldfield.org
>
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