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Re: Citrix and JAWS

for

From: Giovanni Duarte
Date: Nov 7, 2011 9:06AM

Thank you David for the comments. We are trying to provide "alternatives"
for students so Citrix is not the only way to deliver software ; however,
there are some software applications, that due to licensing issues, work
"better" in Citrix.
I will check about the use of other assistive technologies - to be honest, I
completely forgot about it. I can see problems with Naturally Speaking, Zoom
text, and other technologies.

Thanks,
Giovanni


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Patterson, David
K (ITD)
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 9:46 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Citrix and JAWS

Hi,

One of the requirements for using JAWS within a Citrix environment is that
JAWS needs to be installed and configured on both the Citrix XenApp Server,
as well as the client computer. Furthermore, you need to purchase the
Remote Access option for both JAWS installation to have it work at all. So,
you cannot control your online students' computer equipment and their
Assistive Technology software, then you may have a major problem in
providing a Citrix solution that would be fully accessible.

You should know that there are other assistive technologies and all of them
would need to be compatible in a Citrix based environment. For example, from
my understanding, ZoomText, a screen reader / magnifier from AI Squared does
not support remote access.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts looked into these very issues a couple
years ago and found that the Citrix solutions used with various AT software
did not meet our accessibility standards. That may have changed somewhat
since then, but we have done any further work on that.

Your comment that "Microsoft Office applications, are 'accessible' but via
Citrix these become inaccessible" is what we had found too, let alone other
types of applications. You might be better off deploying eLearning based
solutions that have a better likelihood of being more accessible for your
students.

I hope some of this helps.

David