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Re: Differences Between Testing With JAWS And NVDA

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From: Geethavani.Shamanna
Date: Mar 18, 2022 8:33AM

I recently tested a modal dialog with both NVDA and Jaws. With NVDA the dialog worked as expected. However, with Jaws, with the virtual cursor turned on, I was able to access other parts of the page when within the dialog.

I have found Jaws unreliable in other instances as well, particularly when testing forms.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: 18 March 2022 14:12
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Differences Between Testing With JAWS And NVDA

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NVDA is better for testing because it does not try to make up for missing or incorrect coding, specifically it does not try to guess the intended label of an unlabeled form control.
Jaws does that, which makes a lot of sense for regular users, but is bad for testers, it hides a real problem. Also Jaws gets it wrong sometimes, about 5 to 10% of the itme, in my rough estimate.
I love testing with Jaws because I can quickly find the problematic element by using the displayAdvancedElementInfo script with a keyobard key, it gives me instant insight into where the problem lies and helps me find the element more quickly in the developer tools (presing
shift-f10 does not always work to get there).
Whether I'm using NVDA or Jaws, I often force the app into forms/application mode (to test whether a custom element can be activated with the keyboard, if you are in browse mode and press enter or spacebar, the screen reader sends a click event, not a keyboard event, to the element, so you can activate an element with a screen reader that you couldn't with the keyboard only).
I also change the display graphics setting in Jaws to "show all images" to see which ones do not have alt text and also I have to alter the settings to see all the ARIA landmarks.

Other than that I try to test with the default values, that is the most predictable screen reader user experience.
Cheers
-B

On 3/18/22, Jim Homme < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi,
> I usually do accessibility testing with NVDA. For those of you who
> test with JAWS, what differences do you notice when comparing the
> results between the two screen readers and what JAWS settings do you change from the defaults?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
> =========> Jim Homme
> Senior Digital Accessibility Consultant Bender Consulting Services
> 412-787-8567
> https://www.benderconsult.com/
> Support the dreams of independence through employment for students
> with disabilities with your Amazon purchases.
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>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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