E-mail List Archives

Search E-mail List Archives for

Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)

From: Dan Smith
Date: Wed, Oct 05 2016 8:40PM
Subject: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts?
No previous message | Next message →

I'm in the process of educating some developers about why it's better to
let screen reader users leverage the shortcuts built into their screen
reader, than it is to put a tab index on everything. But I wondered, how do
folks access keyboard shortcuts that use modifier keys, if they are using a
mouth stick, a switch, or a sip and puff controller?

Do you have links to some documentation or videos?

Many thanks,
Dan

From: Maxability Accessibility for all
Date: Thu, Oct 06 2016 4:51AM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts?
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Dan,

How about a sticky key function on Windows OS help, If I need to lock my
computer,
1. Switch on the sticky key : press shift key 5 times and hit on yes in the
alert.
2. once sticky keys is on once can use individual keys to activate a
function than using all at once. for windows + l, press Windows key first
and then L. For control + Alt + Del, Press Control then Alt and then
delete.


Thanks & Regards
Rakesh
www.maxability.co.in


On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 8:10 AM, Dan Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> I'm in the process of educating some developers about why it's better to
> let screen reader users leverage the shortcuts built into their screen
> reader, than it is to put a tab index on everything. But I wondered, how do
> folks access keyboard shortcuts that use modifier keys, if they are using a
> mouth stick, a switch, or a sip and puff controller?
>
> Do you have links to some documentation or videos?
>
> Many thanks,
> Dan
> > > > >

From: JP Jamous
Date: Thu, Oct 06 2016 5:07AM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies accessscreen reader shortcuts?
← Previous message | Next message →

Dan,

One easy answer from my experience as a developer and WCAG expert. Do not touch the tabindex unless it is really necessary.

Let the browser handle this based on the DOM structure. You'd make your life and the life of your users better.

I know too many sighted developers do not get this. Some use a value of 0 and others -1. Bottom line, they are all unnecessary.

I just modified a chat app UI for a third-party that services us. Their code was terrible, I have no idea how screen readers were able to make heads and tails out of it. Every Div had a tabindex, role, and that's all they used.no P elements, headings nothing. All divs. It was horrible. The most terrible code I have ever touched in 8 years.

From: Dan Smith
Date: Thu, Oct 06 2016 8:27PM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks both for your replies. Rakesh, those sticky keys sound great. :)

JP Jamous, perhaps we are working with the same client ;-) The mindset here
is that screen readers only work with the TAB key. These guys have tunnel
vision for the deadline, so no structural changes are allowed and
everything goes into the uncommented blackbox of JavaScript. A small
example is that anything semantic is removed with aria-hidden and a
negative tab-index, then they use 300 positive tab indices and JavaScript
key events on divs to duplicate everything with aria-describedby. Good luck
using that with Rotor! ;-)

Cheers,
Dan

From: JP Jamous
Date: Fri, Oct 07 2016 6:26AM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts
← Previous message | Next message →

Dan,

No we aren't working for the same company. Thank God! :)

Dude, that will be a major can of worms. I hope they isolate that site from other users.

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Fri, Oct 07 2016 7:56AM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts
← Previous message | Next message →

>The mindset here is that screen readers only work with the TAB key.

I've run into crazy issues like this before as well.. For example, one large International organization decided in it's products to add the accessible name to input fields when the field received focus. So of course there was no accessible name in virtual cursor/browse mode and the timing was buggy when tabbing to the field and the name often wasn't announced. They also put everything in the focus order and argued that the app didn't need to allow the user access with virtual cursor/browse mode in order to be Section 508 compliant. Of course it also required the user turning off the virtual cursor with JAWS because in that mode title attributes are announced from other elements like divs, etc. There were also numerous other issues such as unlabeled graphics, etc. When I mentioned to the agency that they had purchased a non-section 508 compliant app I was asked to never say that again and to drop the issue.

Jonathan

From: JP Jamous
Date: Fri, Oct 07 2016 8:12AM
Subject: Re: How do users of physical Assistive Technologies access screen reader shortcuts
← Previous message | No next message

Wowe! They knew what they were doing but did not want to admit it. Shove it under the carpet.

I cannot blame the folks I was dealing with, because they were from a developing country. They had no clue what A11Y was nor how to handle screen readers.

They stuffed the code to ensure they were covering everything. Yet, it became a nightmare.