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Re: training sr users for the modern web (wasIntuitiveness of JAWS jump to tabpanel shortcut for ARIA Tabs in FF??

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Jul 4, 2014 7:06PM

I think this project is something that is absolutely vital to the
increased functionality of the modern web; one which has been somewaht
niglected by a lot of us.
When you work with testing, code and screen reader compatibility all
day, you sometimes forget about the ultimate purpose, which is to
enable end users of all abilities (not just blind/vi users) to
interact with, and use, the web.
Part of that is inevitably to teach end users waht to expect,
especially when it comes to the more advanced widgets used.

Me and my colleague had a very aggressive project lined up a year ago
called Cognosco. Its purpose was to creae interactive online tutorial
on using the web with screen readers and other assistive technologies
using a combination of text, videos and online sample pages.
Unfortunately we work on two continents in two unrelated jobs, and the
funding we had been promised in the spring of 2013 was not delivered
in the fall, so we had to make the painful decision to put that
project on ice.


On 7/4/14, Jennison Mark Asuncion < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On 7/4/14, Léonie Watson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Discovery is possibly the biggest challenge. It isn't helped by the fact
>> that little changed on the web for a long time, so people rarely had to
>> figure out new forms of interaction. Screen readers don't explain how to
>> use
>> links for example.
>
> Léonie,
>
> Your comment gave me an opportunity to raise an issue that I've been
> informally discussing with folk for a while now - while we are all
> implementing the best solutions possible to make the modern web
> accessible, I am convinced that there exists a training gap for the
> average screen reader users (who are not on this list, monitoring
> twitter, etc.) when it comes to interacting with web apps and their
> associated design patterns.
>
> I would be curious to hear from anyone who conducts screen reader
> training to blind end-users about this topic.
>
> Jennison
> > > >


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