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Re: [EXTERNAL] Google Lighthouse with a screen reader?

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From: KellyFord
Date: May 15, 2018 10:26AM

Hi,

Here is how I access Lighthouse with a screen reader in Chrome. There may be faster ways so suggestions welcome. I do this with both JAWS and NVDA.

1. Open the dev tools with F12.
2. Press ctrl+[ or ctrl+] to cycle through the tabs. That's control and left or right bracket. Note you can also tab to the list of tabs and press right arrow until you get to Audits. Depending on how many tabs are shown, a menu may appear as you arrow.
3. Use my screen readers jump to button key (typically b) to find the Run Audit button.
4. Check the boxes for which audits I want to run and launch the audit.

When reading the results, the different categories of the report do not have headings so a search for accessibility as an example is the fastest way for me to find that section in the report. I can then expand the different problem sections and failing elements. From the screen reading web mode (JAWS virtual PC or NVDA Browse mode) I can press enter on the failing element. This seems to shift back to the Elements tab and scroll/expand the DOM tree to the problem element.

To get back to the audit report, I have to press the ctrl+[ or ctrl+] keys again until I'm back on the correct tab. Perhaps there is a hotkey to select the tab directly but so far I have not found it.

All this said, using the dev tools for me does still require a bit of jumping back and forth between the different screen reading modes. This is true for whatever browser/screen reader combination I've tried.

Kelly