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AT that get their information from the Accessibility Tree, other than screenreaders

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From: Roel Van Gils
Date: Sep 19, 2017 4:03AM

Hi,

Screenreaders such as Jaws, NVDA, VoiceOver and WindowEyes, all rely on the Accessibility Tree that the OS exposes to them. Screenreaders narrate what's on the screen and offer ways to interact with it.

The 'web content' inside of a browser tab is in fact only one 'branch' of that tree. To us, 'web people', that's the most important and interesting branch of that tree. It's the only branch we can directly manipulate using semantic markup and WAI-ARIA attributes.

Now, when learning and (teaching) about techniques like ARIA, we often mention that ARIA enhances the experience for 'users of assistive technology, *such as* screenreaders'. I'm wondering if that's entirely accurate. Does anyone know of any other types of Assistive Technology (hardware or software, aimed at users with any type of disability) that gets is information from the 'web content branches' of the OS Accessibility Tree?

The only one that comes to my mind, is perhaps Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS), although I haven't been able to test it (since they don't have a trial version, and it's pretty expensive to buy). I can imagine a situation in which a motor disabled person could say things like "Open dropdown 'Language' ... Select Dutch' or "Press button 'Submit'". As a front-end developer, I would expect that DNS would rely on the Accessible Tree to make this happen, so if my submit button is actually a <div role="button">, this should work.

I'm eager to broaden my knowledge on this subject :)

Thanks!
Roel


--
Roel Van Gils
Inclusive Design & Accessibility Consultant

Tel.: +32 473 88 18 06
Skype: roelvangils
Twitter: twitter.com/roelvangils
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