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Re: Using Firefox with nvda for accessibility testing needs

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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Nov 30, 2020 11:48AM

On 30/11/2020 18:39, Всеволод Попов wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Today I heard the statement that it is better to test accessibility in
> firefox with nvda than using chrome with the same screen reader.
>
> I don't really understand the difference now, but it would be really
> useful for me to understand it better. In which cases is it better to
> use firefox plus nvda for accessibility testing than using nvda with
> chrome and why? Where is the difference and how can I find it in the
> example?
>
> I would like to use several browsers for testing and that's why I am
> asking it.

It used to be that Firefox was better in terms of correctly exposing the
accessibility tree/properties correctly, compared to Chrome. But that
gap has pretty much been closed, I'd say.

Often, decisions on which browser/AT to test with is driven by stats -
which combinations have the most users/marketshare. Here as well,
though, Chrome/NVDA is really not that far off from Firefox/NVDA usage,
if we just go by stats like WebAIM's survey (I think last year's is the
most recent, can't remember if this was pushed out for this year?)
https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey8/#browsercombos

Anecdotally, I do a large chunk of testing in Chrome/NVDA purely out of
convenience (find NVDA a lot easier to just "quickly fire up something,
test, close it again", and particularly with Chrome, it's usually
seamless ... while with Firefox, I usually have to make sure that I fire
up NVDA first, and only *then* start Firefox, otherwise the browser gets
itself confused and exposes nothing). And I find that combination quite
good (though always best to double-check particularly complex scenarios,
particularly with convoluted ARIA, or live regions, in various other
combinations just to be sure).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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