WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Wai Aria how useful?

for

From: Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Date: Jul 26, 2010 4:24PM


This is true, and this is why I think usability testing, in general,
should be done with NVDA rather than with the commercial screen
readers, or, at least, alongside the major screen readers.
I am very impressed with the NVDA performance, especially in this area.
Cheers
-B

On 7/26/10, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> also worth mentioning yahoo!'s YUI work there
>
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
>
> On 26 Jul 2010, at 21:39, "Hoffman, Allen" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Just curious:
>> Dojo and Jquery are the two always named sets of building blocks which
>> include ARIA.
>> Of the set of similar building blocks, is this 2% 50% or what?
>> This proliferation of such building block sets which may or may not
>> include easy use of accessibility features seems to be a real challenge to
>> me.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 6:43 PM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Wai Aria how useful?
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> Thanks very much for all the info.
>> Like I said I am fairly new to all of this and it appears I
>> misunderstood a few things, but I am all too happy to be corrected and
>> will start with the pointers in your post for further research.
>> The screen reader ownership survey surprises me though, it may be
>> location specific, because I know the situation in a few countries in
>> Europe and the user SR ownership seems to differ from this survey, so
>> it is a good thing.
>> I will post back with questions/comments after I update my knowledge
>> some. *grin*
>> Cheers
>> -B
>>
>> On 7/22/10, Steven Faulkner < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>> hi birkir,
>>>
>>> you wrote:
>>> "You definitely cannot expect your users to be so up-to-date given the
>>> price
>>> of upgrades..."
>>>
>>> The webaim screen readers survey differs from your conclusion
>>>
>>> "The vast majority of respondents updated their primary screen reader
>>> within
>>> the previous year."
>>> http://www.webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey2/#demographics
>>>
>>>
>>> you wrote:
>>> "Another issue is clashes between screen reader key strokes while
>>> navigating a web page and assigned Aria keyboard shortcuts. "
>>>
>>> There are no "ARIA keyboard shortcuts" as such:
>>> The set of keyboard shortcuts defined for use in Google Reader has
>>> NOTHING
>>> to do with ARIA.
>>>
>>> What ARIA promotes is the implementation of keyboard interactions for
>>> widgets that are the same or similar to those of controls in desktop
>>> software applications
>>>
>>> "The model for keyboard support for Web 2.0 widgets are graphical user
>>>> interface (GUI) operating systems like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X; and
>>>> other desktop operating systems like GNOME and GTK. "
>>>
>>> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/#kbd_generalnav
>>>
>>> There is an ongoing effort to specify keyboard keystrokes to be used for
>>> web
>>> based controls:
>>> http://dev.aol.com/dhtml_style_guide
>>>
>>> These keyboard interaction best practices are being implemented in
>>> javascript UI libraries such as DOJO and JQUERY so that users can rely
>>> upon
>>> the same or similar keystrokes being usable on for example a 'button'
>>> regardless of whether its a native HTML button <button> or a button built
>>> from divs and spans with added script to provide the user interaction.
>>>
>>>> Another issue is clashes between screen reader key strokes while
>>>> navigating a web page and assigned Aria keyboard shortcuts. The
>>>> application element is supposed to turn off screen reader key
>>>> functionality but this does not always seem to work properly
>>>
>>> There is no clash per se, when in document reading mode, most key strokes
>>> are consumed by the AT, this is why most windows based AT have a special
>>> mode for interacting with native controls on web pages, which allows
>>> keystrokes to be passed to the browser rather than consumed by the AT.
>>> ARIA
>>> extends this method to the custom controls built using a combination of
>>> HTML/scripting and CSS.
>>>
>>> The use of role="application" on an element indicates to AT that support
>>> it
>>> they should switch from document to application mode (so users can
>>> interact
>>> with controls using the keyboard). It is true that it sometimes does not
>>> work, but i would suggest it is no more or less buggy than many of the
>>> other
>>> features in popular commercial screen readers.
>>>
>>> you wrote:
>>> "/basically, yopu have to expect not all users can use Aria and even
>>> for those who can, a lot of thought needs to go in to the key mapping
>>> and you must ensure that the user can access a simple keyboard help
>>> overview in a convenient format somehow (perhaps have it downloadable
>>> as a .txt file or plain html page that opens in a new window or tab)."
>>>
>>> again what you are talking about has nothing to do with ARIA, in fact it
>>> is
>>> the opposite:
>>> The use of ARIA on custom controls provides users with information about
>>> the
>>> role/state and properties of the control which typically results in the
>>> AT
>>> providing hints about how to interact with the control.
>>>
>>> Tests and examples of what AT report when ARIA roles are encountered:
>>> http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/aria-tests/user-input-widgets.html
>>> note these results are from 18 months ago.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Stevef
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2010/7/22 Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>>>
>>>> There are a few inherent problems with Aria.
>>>> To use it I believe that you need Firefox 3.5 or newer, IE8. As for
>>>> screen readers I think it is Jaws 10 and above, Window Eyes 7 and
>>>
>>> above and Hal/Dolphin 11.2 and above (NVDA does a good job of
>>>> recognizing Aria).
>>>> You definitely cannot expect your users to be so up-to-date given the
>>>> price of upgrades and relatively lousy set of improvements at least in
>>>> Jaws lately (no bashing intended, Ijust feel that upgrades from Jaws 9
>>>> have hardly been worth it).
>>>> Another issue is clashes between screen reader key strokes while
>>>> navigating a web page and assigned Aria keyboard shortcuts. The
>>>> application element is supposed to turn off screen reader key
>>>> functionality but this does not always seem to work properly (I will
>>>> admit I lack expertees in this area, I am looking at it but this was
>>>> discussed at length at the ICCHP conference I just attended).
>>>> Thus a screen reader user must pass every keysroke to an Aria page
>>>> through the screen reader by using the designed pass through key, and
>>>> that is a relatively advanced operation (or rather, having the user
>>>> recognize the need to do this is fairly advanced, one has to
>>>> understand what type of page is being encounterred and what that means
>>>> for navigation).
>>>> Even if both of these issues are resoled and you have a user with
>>>> compatible SR and browser and the switching off works, there is still
>>>> a worrying lack of standards regarding keyboard mapping of aria
>>>> elements, which means the user has to continually return to some type
>>>> of on page help to see what keystrokes are required for what action
>>>> (See GoogleReader as an example).
>>>> These help messages do not (perhaps cannot) appear in a virtual
>>>> buffer, meaning it is hard to copy them and recall them in a text
>>>> document, so you have to kepp clicking on some type of help / overview
>>>> on the page that tells you the functionality of each key stroke.
>>>> There is a brilliant video demo about this, I will post it if I manage
>>>> to dig it up from my conference lecture notes, which I will have time
>>>> for over the weekend.
>>>> /basically, yopu have to expect not all users can use Aria and even
>>>> for those who can, a lot of thought needs to go in to the key mapping
>>>> and you must ensure that the user can access a simple keyboard help
>>>> overview in a convenient format somehow (perhaps have it downloadable
>>>> as a .txt file or plain html page that opens in a new window or tab).
>>>> Hope some of these thoughts help, plesae keep us updated and I will
>>>> post back once I have sorted out my notes.
>>>> Cheers
>>>> -B
>>>>
>>>> On 7/22/10, Seth Kane < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>>>> I have had little to no luck with ARIA unless you have the latest and
>>>> great
>>>>> version of both browsers and screen readers. It isn't ready for the
>>>> lowest
>>>>> common denominator just yet. Maybe HTML5 will be better.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Seth Kane
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>>> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of
>>>>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:13 PM
>>>>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Wai Aria how useful?
>>>>>
>>>>> Nancy Johnson wrote:
>>>>>> How useful is WAI Aria to the average screen reader user who may not
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> technically inclined?
>>>>>
>>>>> It depends on what version of a screenreader and browser they
>>>>> have. With JAWS 11 + Firefox 3, for example, live regions get
>>>>> announced in ways that some people find helpful (depending on how
>>>>> well they have encoded).
>>>>>
>>>>>> Does this also help the mobility impaired user who is not visually
>>>>>> impaired?
>>>>>
>>>>> I have found that there are circumstances in which ARIA
>>>>> navigation changes the way the wonderful Firefox add-on
>>>>> Mouseless Browsing interacts with a webpage in a way that gives
>>>>> me more control over Ajax drop-down menus. I haven't narrowed it
>>>>> down to exactly what features make things better, but I've been
>>>>> meaning to.
>>>>>
>>>>> -deborah
>>>>>