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Re: Screen reader support

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Apr 21, 2020 5:57AM

We can't make things accessible to one adaptive technology. Even if we were to say "this is JAWS conforming" we have no idea exactly what that means. Which version of JAWS, which browser, which version of the browser, which device, which user settings?

This is why we make digital content/applications accessible to international standards. We can test with screen readers, Text-to-Speech tools, voice recognition tools, alternate input devices to understand and confirm a level of accessibility but it is the international standard that provides the foundation for adaptive technologies to work with digital content/applications.

For example, JAWS 17 would not read Alt text for images in PDF documents or Word documents...that feature was broken until JAWS 18. Did that mean that all correctly tagged PDF or accessible Word documents read with JAWS were not "accessible"? No, the documents were tagged and created correctly and the Alt Text was present. Likewise, if someone uses Read Out Loud to test PDF, Read Out Loud only reads the entire document or the page and does not have the capability of accessing the more granular information like tables cells with column and row title information...it hasn't evolved since Acrobat 5 or 6 when it was introduced as an example of what someone might hear if they used a screen reader or Text-to-Speech tool. Does that mean that the PDF is not "accessible"? Not if it is tagged correctly and passes both an automated testing tool and a manual testing process.

Cheers, Karen