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Re: JAWS and online forms question

for

From: Mark Rew
Date: Feb 24, 2003 6:36AM

Lisa,

Take a look at the following site:
http://www.gsa.gov/forms

Almost all of these forms should have been tested with Jaws. The hard part
for a Jaws user is the form to download the special software.

Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miller, Lisa F. (LMS)" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 8:16 AM
Subject: RE: JAWS and online forms question


> Andrew,
>
> The link you included is very similar to the page we are building:
> http://www.ma.doe.gov/energy/web.html. We are reproducing an official
> government form on the web, and must retain all the information available on
> the original form, so we do not have the option to condense any of the text
> - it is required to look as much like the paper form as possible. The site
> is required to be 508 compliant, which has been defined by the client as
> being JAWS complient.
>
> We would like to make the site as 'usable' as possible, but finding 508
> compliant examples which do more than a 'Contact Me' page has been
> difficult. If anyone could point me to any good sites, especially in
> regards to complex forms, it would be most appreciated. I have passed the
> suggestions from this forum on to the programmer, and hope to get some
> feedback from him today or tomorrow.
>
> Thanks for your help,
> Lisa
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andrew Kirkpatrick [SMTP: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 9:53 PM
> > To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Subject: Re: JAWS and online forms question
> >
> > Lisa,
> > This is a good example of a usability problem for people using assistive
> > technology. The information is
> > accessible - the user could get it if he knew it was there, but your
> > testing is indicating that a problem exists
> > and that is worth listening to.
> >
> > You could either take the suggestion to use fieldset and legend, or you
> > could indicate somehow that
> > additional information for a particular input is available in the label.
> > If you indicated at the top of the form at
> > an asterisk in the label indicates additional information about the input
> > is available just above the input, it
> > might work for some users, but you'll probably get lots of junky data from
> > people who don't understand what
> > is going on or use the additioanl info.
> >
> > If you are talking about a form like the one at:
> > http://www.ma.doe.gov/energy/web.html
> > (which seems to fit your description), I don't think that the extra text
> > would be necessary if the labels on the
> > inputs were more descriptive. I don't believe that I could complete this
> > form successfully - there is extra
> > text, but I don't get what I'm supposed to enter into the form.
> >
> > If you send the list a link to a sample page, I'm sure you'd get lots of
> > advice.
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> > 2/20/2003 4:34:51 PM, "Miller, Lisa F. (LMS)" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > >We are developing an online form, and are having problems navigating thru
> > >the from with JAWS. There are a number of labeled input fields, which
> > each
> > >have text instructions preceeding them, such as:
> > >
> > >==> > >This is a long instruction on how to correctly fill out field 1, plus any
> > >reference information which might be needed.
> > >
> > >Field1 Label: ___________
> > >
> > >This is a long instruction on how to correctly fill out field 2, plus any
> > >reference information which might be needed.
> > >
> > >Field2 Label: ____________
> > >
> > >==> > >
> > >When our tester navigates this page with JAWS, the instructions lines are
> > >skipped because it is navigating thru the input fields only - to get the
> > >text, he has to change modes, which a blind person would not know to do -
> > >there is no indication to the user that the text is there.
> > >
> > >Right now the page is built with one set of FORM tags - is there any way,
> > >other than wrapping each individual input field with its own FORM tag, to
> > >get JAWS to read the instruction text? We are debating placing the text
> > >into read only textareas, but this would not be our first choice. Has
> > >anyone else ran across this - maybe already solved this for us?
> > >
> > >Thanks,
> > >
> > >Lisa F. Miller
> > >BWXT Y-12 - Technical Computing
> > >Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > >
> > >
> > >----
> > >To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> > >visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
> > >
> > >
> > Andrew
> >
> > --
> > Andrew Kirkpatrick
> > CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
> > 125 Western Ave.
> > Boston, MA 02134
> > E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----
> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> > visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
>
> ----
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>
>


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