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Re: Citrix and JAWS

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Nov 7, 2011 7:36AM

Giovanni,

I am not an expert on using screen readers in a Citrix environment, but I did do some research previously. My understanding is that to make a screen reader work in that environment you will end up having to run a screen reader on the Citrix server and on the client workstation. The screen reader on the server is the one that does the heavy work of interacting with the application running on the server. I believe the client-side screen reader basically ends up sending commands to the server-side screen reader. The reason for this being that the application isn't run on the client-side so a client-side screen reader has nothing to interact with.

That at least is my understanding of how it works. Unfortunately, I only conducted research on the topic and didn't end up needing to set up a test environment using Citrix. I did have a brief opportunity to test a Citrix client app on an IOS device, but it was inaccessible and there was no screen reader running on the server-side so I wasn't expecting it to work--one of those times, when I would much rather be wrong than right.

Life would be much easier if I could be right whenever I want to be right and wrong any time I wanted to be wrong.

Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Giovanni Duarte
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2011 10:51 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: [WebAIM] Citrix and JAWS

Hi,
My institution is trying to make the Citrix environment more accessible. I
haven't been able to find much information about it. I am looking for the
technical details and answers to the following questions:
- Have any of you successfully implemented JAWS in Citrix? If so, how? Any
recommendations will be appreciated
- I noticed that JAWS has a Citrix license available but I am not sure how
the technology is implemented. What are all the "components" (technologies)
needed to make Citrix accessible?
- What do I need to have for a remote user to be able to use Citrix?

To put everything in context, the Citrix environment is used for online
students so we can't control their computer equipment. I am looking for a
solution where a screen reader user can use the Citrix applications. I know
the applications themselves can be a different problem but some others, such
as Microsoft Office applications, are "accessible" but via Citrix these
become inaccessible.

Thanks,
Giovanni