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Re: screen reader usage?

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From: Joe Chidzik
Date: Feb 9, 2016 8:21AM

As you've observed, users will work in different ways, so it is important to involve them in any testing process for best results. Novice screenreader users will work in a different way to more experienced users, and so on for advanced users.

That said pre-user testing can be useful to remove obvious issues and allow user testing to focus on more relevant issues.

Note that I am a sighted user, using a screenreader, but when carrying out screenreader testing, I try to:
-Arrow downup through page content
-Navigate data tables appropriately; traversing to make sure headers are properly picked up
-Navigate controls via tabshift-tab to check for focus order, and that controls are announced as expected
-Review content of the JAWS dialogs for Headings, Form controls, Links (or other screenreader equivalents) - useful to see all linksheadings out of context, and the forms list is great for quickly spotting a mis-labelled form field.
-For forms, important to check both labellinginstructions, but also behaviour when erroneousmissing data submitted. Are errors announceduseful etc.

Hopefully some actual screenreader users will be able to chip in here with their experiences too.

Cheers
Joe


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