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Re: PDF, Accessibility and Quality Control

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From: Tamas Babinszki
Date: Jan 26, 2007 4:20PM


Hi Melanie,

When you test with a particular screen reader it can be problematic, because
as you say, a different version will give you different results. Also, this
way people who use a different screen reader might also be excluded. It is
best to follow good practices, be as maticulous about tagging as possible,
and let assistive technologies worry about reading a properly written
document. It pays off on the long run.

Tamas Babinszki
Accessibility Consultant
http://www.a11yinfo.com

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Zwack, Melanie C
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 3:16 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] PDF, Accessibility and Quality Control

Can people share what they do to ensure Quality Control for Accessible PDFs
they produce?



My main question: How vigilant are you that the tags used in the tagging,
accurately represent the content? For example, in the past we have placed
content in sequential order as best we can, but pretty much ignored the
tags. For example, even if a paragraph text is tagged with a header tag, we
would just let it go, because mainly due to the fact of how much time that
it would take to correct this. Now, with Jaws 7.0 that we just got, it is
actually reading 'Graphic: Then the content here' - - so it is specifying
the tag explicitly. The fact that in the past we did not pay much attention
to this, is now a problem when we use Jaws 7.0 to Qc. Jaws is specifying
each tag, before reading the content, so it is obvious in the case when an
incorrect tag is used. Any thoughts on this?



Also, I am evaluation our Quality Control process in general for Accessible
PDFs, and would be very interested to hear of any other people's procedures
for this area. I would like to make sure our process is where it needs to
be.



I'll also start off with specifying our process:



1) We apply tags to a PDF and touchup the tags as necessary (ie.,
adding ALT tags to images, re-arranging the order of the tags as
necessary.)

2) Quality Control staff spot checks the PDFs to see if the tags
are reading right. (We do not use the automated Accessibility Checker to
verify correctness, but instead we have Quality Control check each file with
a Screen Reader.)



TIA

Melanie