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Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers

for

From: James Nurthen
Date: May 5, 2016 5:30PM

In Firefox you can also set preferences in about:config to always show a
focus indicator as well as changing the style of that iindicator. The main
one is *browser. display. focus_ring_on_anything
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_on_anything>;* The
following preferences are available

*browser. display. focus_background_color
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_background_color>;* String The
default color for the background of focused elements as a hex code. Default
value is *#117722*. Requires that *browser.display.use_focus_colors* be true
*browser. display. focus_ring_on_anything
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_on_anything>;* Boolean
*True*: Display the focus ring (normally only shown on links) on anything
*False* (default): Display the focus ring on links only
*browser. display. focus_ring_width
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_width>;* Integer
Determines
the display of the focus ring around focused elements.
*0*: Hide focus ring
*1* (default): Dots around focused elements will be displayed with a 1
pixel border
*(n)*: Display dots with a width of *n* pixels around focused elements
*browser. display. focus_text_color* String The default color for the text
of focused elements as a hex code. Default value is *#ffffff*. Requires
that *browser.display.use_focus_colors* be true
*browser. display. use_focus_colors* Boolean *True*: Set colors on focused
items according to preferences
*False* (default): Do not set colors on focused items
I've found that focus_ring_on_anything and focus_ring_width work pretty
well on most pages. Changing the colors works well on some pages but
sometimes causes text to become illegible on focus.

regards,
James

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 7:09 AM, < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Thank you, Jennifer, for linking to that. For those of you who, like me,
> are sighted accessibility professionals, you might find Focus Highlight
> invaluable. I never really understood the way screen reader focusing
> and buffers work until I installed that plug-in. Now I only barely
> understand it, which is better than not understanding at all.
>
> (As a keyboard/voice user, I've also written a Stylish style for Firefox
> which always shows the keyboard focus, because I'm exasperated with
> offscreen, hidden, or too-subtle to see focus. When I have finished
> debugging some weirdness that happened with modals or certain off-screen
> or Z-index conditions, I will be happy to share it.)
>
> Deborah Kaplan
>
>
> On Tue, 3 May 2016, Jennifer Sutton wrote:
>
> For those who may be unaware, I'll provide the link to the Focus Highlight
>> Plugin for NVDA which is the one I believe Jonathan meant when he wrote, in
>> part:
>>
>> "There is a plug-in though for NVDA."
>>
>>
>> I believe this is a link to the most recent version:
>>
>>
>> http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html
>>
>>
>> In addition, I'll mention that both JFW and NVDA have ways to display the
>> textual representation of what each screen reader is speaking. Using this
>> can be faster for those who are not used to listening to text-to-speech,
>> and it can also save time, when writing reports, since you can "copy and
>> paste." Yes, I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but I think many
>> Windows users who have vision and are learning to test with a screen reader
>> may not realize that JFW and NVDA can do something visually similar to what
>> VO can do on the Mac.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Jennifer
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/3/2016 10:52 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>>
>>> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.
>>>>
>>> Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an
>>>
>> element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some
>> other screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse
>> mode. I noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus
>> outline appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when
>> you arrow to them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like
>> normal behavior -- perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE
>> have some known issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as
>> the focus indicator is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the
>> programmatic focus it should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus
>> indicators based on programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not.
>> There is a plug-in though for NVDA.
>>
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>> Jonathan Avila
>>> Chief Accessibility Officer
>>> SSB BART Group
>>> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>>>
>>> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
>>> Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!
>>>
>>>
>>>