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Thread: Adobe Connect & accessibility
Number of posts in this thread: 19 (In chronological order)
From: Marc Seguin
Date: Thu, Sep 30 2010 3:18PM
Subject: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Hello All,
I am working to develop an accessibility best practices guide concerning the use of Adobe Connect for a federal agency that I work for. In the list archives I discovered that there was a discussion back in November 2009 and Hadi had shared some good information about web conferencing products at that time. There have also been a few resources that I have found useful on Adobe's site and connectusers.com, but I was hoping that one of the knowledgeable people here might know of any others helpful places to look.
I appreciate any suggestions! Thank you for all the other helpful information that you share daily.
Sincerely,
Marc
From: John E. Brandt
Date: Thu, Sep 30 2010 7:00PM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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As far as I know Adobe Connect has not been upgraded and is still not
completely accessible. As I recall, it uses a Flash powered script for login
that does not work with screen readers. The audio - once you are logged in -
is fine since it uses standard telephone lines. I also recall some problems
with some of the pods not working with screenreaders.
There are some third party applications that can be used with Adobe Connect
that can be used to work around the deficits. We recommended to Maine State
users (who have a contract with a company that uses only Adobe Connect) to
use Serotek Accessible Event to work around the shortcomings.
There are many other similar products out there that are accessible.
Andrew K may be able to provide us with an update on where Adobe is on the
upgrade.
John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.jebswebs.com
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Thu, Sep 30 2010 7:12PM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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There are many other similar products out there that are accessible.
Many? Really? :)
Andrew K may be able to provide us with an update on where Adobe is on the
upgrade.
I can't publicly provide any more details than I did at CSUN. We are improving accessibility in Connect.
AWK
From: Karen Mardahl
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 12:21AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Hi Marc
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:18 PM, Marc Seguin < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I am working to develop an accessibility best practices guide concerning
> the use of Adobe Connect for a federal agency that I work for. In the list
> archives I discovered that there was a discussion back in November 2009 and
> Hadi had shared some good information about web conferencing products at
> that time. There have also been a few resources that I have found useful on
> Adobe's site and connectusers.com, but I was hoping that one of the
> knowledgeable people here might know of any others helpful places to look.
>
I attended the a11ysummit conference held yesterday using Adobe Connect. Why
not write to http://a11ysummit.com/ and ask whether you can send the
participants a few questions? I understood at least one blind user attended,
and got the impression there were others with low vision. I also heard one
blind couldn't/wouldn't attend because of the sign-up procedure that was not
accessible to him. They had (very impressive) live CART captioning. Not a
basic part of Connect, but it shows it can easily be integrated. I think
that conference experience should provide good insights.
regards, Karen Mardahl
http://flavors.me/kmdk & http://www.stc-access.org
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 6:33AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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I don't know what the sign-up issue was, but that isn't part of Connect. The log-in for the current version of connect is fully accessible (it's an HTML page with 2-3 form controls, with labels) - once logged into an event like yesterday's screen reader users can listen to the discussion (via VOIP) but since the user interface is not screen reader accessible at present interacting with the meeting is very limited and usually occurs via an alternative means (e.g. since the chat interface is not screen reader accessible organizers will often set up an equivalent alternative conduit for questions to be submitted).
Re: captioning, Adobe provides a captioning extension that is free and easy to use. Meeting organizers do need to fund a captioner to actually do the captioning still. Also, the closed captions are recorded along with the rest of a recorded event.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 7:06AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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When I tested the keyboard/voice control accessibility of Adobe
connect for my employers two years ago, my report to them said,
"Adobe connect: no accessibility at all. This is somewhat
surprising, since Adobe tries hard to be decent with
accessibility, so I wonder if further communication with the
company would reveal more information. But the help files say
nothing."
This obviously isn't helpful -- I don't know what it is about
Adobe connect that I couldn't use. My guess is that I probably
couldn't get into the base controls by voice at all, which
meant that I couldn't test to see if anything beyond that initial
startup was accessible. I know that my employers did some
outreach to Adobe about accessibility, and I'm pretty sure they
didn't hear anything.
On the other hand, this was two years ago. I would be willing to
believe things have changed.
-deborah
From: E.J. Zufelt
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 7:15AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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FWIW, the use of Adobe Connect for yesterday's a11ySummit is, in part, the reason that I did not participate. Not being able to participate equitably in the discussion around the presentations seemed a little like discrimination (ok a lot like discrimination) to me.
Being a lover of irony, and understanding that it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to find a robust and accessible web conferencing solution I am not as annoyed as I could otherwise be. But I've been working around the inaccessibility of Connect (formerly called Breeze) for nearly two years, so it is definitely a pet peeve of mine.
Two thumbs down for Adobe Connect accessibility.
HTH,
Everett Zufelt
http://zufelt.ca
Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/ezufelt
View my LinkedIn Profile
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt
On 2010-10-01, at 9:04 AM, = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
> When I tested the keyboard/voice control accessibility of Adobe
> connect for my employers two years ago, my report to them said,
> "Adobe connect: no accessibility at all. This is somewhat
> surprising, since Adobe tries hard to be decent with
> accessibility, so I wonder if further communication with the
> company would reveal more information. But the help files say
> nothing."
>
> This obviously isn't helpful -- I don't know what it is about
> Adobe connect that I couldn't use. My guess is that I probably
> couldn't get into the base controls by voice at all, which
> meant that I couldn't test to see if anything beyond that initial
> startup was accessible. I know that my employers did some
> outreach to Adobe about accessibility, and I'm pretty sure they
> didn't hear anything.
>
> On the other hand, this was two years ago. I would be willing to
> believe things have changed.
>
> -deborah
>
>
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 7:24AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Deborah,
Two years ago your assessment was probably on target, although we did have the captioning support at that time. In the meantime, we've improved the keyboard support in one of the releases, and committed to improving on the keyboard support (it is limited at present) and making the UI work with assistive technologies.
I'm not going to make excuses for the product - it isn't as accessible as it should be - but that said it can be used as one component of an accessible online meeting. In future versions we will make the experience much simpler for conducting such accessible meetings and have been working to turn Everett's thumbs up.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: Pratik Patel
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 7:33AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Andrew et al,
I look forward to a day when I can not only personally use but recommend to
clients a heavily-used, commercial, cross-platform solution. I do hope it
comes soon.
Regards,
Pratik
From: Mary Stores
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 7:48AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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I am guessing the reason that blidn person had issues at sign-up would
be because of a CAPTCHA. The last time I listened to an Adobe Connect
conference there was no accessible CAPTCHA alternative, and I didn't
know about solona.net.
Mary
QuotiFWIW: does that stand for "for what it's worth?" I haven't
encountered that abbreviation, acronym, ro whatever it is until I
subscribed to this list. Eloquence prounces it funny. :)
Mary
ng "E.J. Zufelt" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
> FWIW, the use of Adobe Connect for yesterday's a11ySummit is, in
> part, the reason that I did not participate. Not being able to
> participate equitably in the discussion around the presentations
> seemed a little like discrimination (ok a lot like discrimination) to
> me.
>
> Being a lover of irony, and understanding that it is difficult
> (perhaps impossible) to find a robust and accessible web conferencing
> solution I am not as annoyed as I could otherwise be. But I've been
> working around the inaccessibility of Connect (formerly called
> Breeze) for nearly two years, so it is definitely a pet peeve of mine.
>
> Two thumbs down for Adobe Connect accessibility.
>
> HTH,
> Everett Zufelt
> http://zufelt.ca
>
> Follow me on Twitter
> http://twitter.com/ezufelt
>
> View my LinkedIn Profile
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt
>
>
>
> On 2010-10-01, at 9:04 AM, = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
>
>> When I tested the keyboard/voice control accessibility of Adobe
>> connect for my employers two years ago, my report to them said,
>> "Adobe connect: no accessibility at all. This is somewhat
>> surprising, since Adobe tries hard to be decent with
>> accessibility, so I wonder if further communication with the
>> company would reveal more information. But the help files say
>> nothing."
>>
>> This obviously isn't helpful -- I don't know what it is about
>> Adobe connect that I couldn't use. My guess is that I probably
>> couldn't get into the base controls by voice at all, which
>> meant that I couldn't test to see if anything beyond that initial
>> startup was accessible. I know that my employers did some
>> outreach to Adobe about accessibility, and I'm pretty sure they
>> didn't hear anything.
>>
>> On the other hand, this was two years ago. I would be willing to
>> believe things have changed.
>>
>> -deborah
>>
>>
From: Hadi Rangin
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 8:00AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Hi Deborah,
Andrew Kirkpatric and product manager for Adobe Connect are well informed
about the accessibility issues of Adobe Connect for screen reader users. We
had a series of communication and discussion with Andrew and his team on
this subject. They would love to make it accessible but I am not aware about
any redesign or new design plan. Andrew please let us know if there is such
plan.
I have conducted an accessibility evaluation on several Web Conferencing
Tools; you are welcome to read the result at:
http://bargirangin.com/conf/csun2010/
or
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/hadi/www/conf/csun2010/
Thanks,
Hadi
----- Original Message -----
From: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Adobe Connect & accessibility
> When I tested the keyboard/voice control accessibility of Adobe
> connect for my employers two years ago, my report to them said,
> "Adobe connect: no accessibility at all. This is somewhat
> surprising, since Adobe tries hard to be decent with
> accessibility, so I wonder if further communication with the
> company would reveal more information. But the help files say
> nothing."
>
> This obviously isn't helpful -- I don't know what it is about
> Adobe connect that I couldn't use. My guess is that I probably
> couldn't get into the base controls by voice at all, which
> meant that I couldn't test to see if anything beyond that initial
> startup was accessible. I know that my employers did some
> outreach to Adobe about accessibility, and I'm pretty sure they
> didn't hear anything.
>
> On the other hand, this was two years ago. I would be willing to
> believe things have changed.
>
> -deborah
>
>
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 8:06AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Hadi,
I'm surprised to hear you say that you are not aware of any redesign plan. This was one of the featured points of my talk at CSUN in San Diego last year, which you attended. Perhaps you mean that you haven't seen a spec for the planned changes - I can't tell from your message, but it is public information that improvements are planned.
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/files/accessibility/assets/adobe_connect_csun2010.pdf
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 8:51AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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I think this was the same conference I tried attending yesterday using
JAWS. The log in was quite accessible. Unfortunately, I was unable to
use JAWS to interact with the UI, which was a particularly troublesome
issue since I didn't seem to be getting sound either and I couldn't fix
the issue because I couldn't use JAWS.
Honestly, yesterday I wasn't certain if it was a technical or
accessibility issue since I kept finding information that indicated that
there were at least some accessibility features in Adobe Connect and I
didn't see anything that indicated it would not work with a screen
reader. So, I probably spent 2 to 2 1/2 hours trying to troubleshoot
the issue before I gave up.
I will say that I was glad to hear that the online conference was going
to provide captioning.
Tim
From: David Farough
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 9:39AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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I attended the conference yesterday. There were some technical issues
periodically during the conference. As Andrew indicated, the User
interface is not navigable using the keyboard. If I did not have some
useable vision, I would not have been able to get to the edit field in
order to ask questions. The Chat window is a great resource which I was
unable to use. It was very busy but I was unable to copy the text for
future use. The conference was great and I benefited from attending. I
will be glad to receive the information that will be sent to the
participants. I hope that the chat text and all the links will be
included .
David Farough
Application Accessibility Coordinator/coordonateur de l'accessibilité
Information Technology Services Directorate /
Direction des services d'information technologiques
Public Service Commission / Commission de la fonction publique
Email / Courriel: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Tel. / Tél: (613) 992-2779
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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 10:06AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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David,
I didn't indicate that the user interface isn't navigable with the keyboard - in fact it is, but only if you have some vision. You can tab to the chat pod and type and send messages, and you can copy the entire chat series and paste into a document on your system. I'm no t sure whether you tried and weren't successful, or if there was some other issue at play.
If a person has limited vision and uses a screen magnifier, since the interface doesn't send info to assistive technologies the screen magnifier's viewport location won't adjust to the focus position change which could make locating the focus difficult if a high-degree of magnification is being used.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 1:18PM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Andrew, could you speak to the use of speech recognition software (e.g., Dragon Naturally Speaking) with Adobe Connect? Has formal testing been done and documented? Any guidance for those of us using such assistive technology when using Adobe Connect?
Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer
10401 Fernwood Rd, Room 3G-17
Bethesda, MD 20892, Mail Stop: 4833
(301) 402-3924 Voice, 451-9326 TTY/NTS
(301) 402-4464 Fax
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• Looking for Training: AT100 - Section 508 Electronic & IT Training - Phase II: http://training.cit.nih.gov/coursedescription.aspx?courseID=CS0000000000852
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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Oct 01 2010 2:18PM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Gary,
Dragon Users have it a little better than other AT users since you can use Connect’s keyboard shortcuts to move the focus and enter information into the editable controls. With MouseGrid you also get access to areas that don’t have good keyboard access.
However, dragon doesn’t recognize control types in connect, due to the limitations mentioned earlier, so you can’t say “share my screen button” and click it, you’ll need to be able to navigate to it or use one of the keyboard shortcuts.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E] [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 3:17 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List; Andrew Kirkpatrick
Subject: RE: [WebAIM] Adobe Connect & accessibility
Andrew, could you speak to the use of speech recognition software (e.g., Dragon Naturally Speaking) with Adobe Connect? Has formal testing been done and documented? Any guidance for those of us using such assistive technology when using Adobe Connect?
Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer
10401 Fernwood Rd, Room 3G-17
Bethesda, MD 20892, Mail Stop: 4833
(301) 402-3924 Voice, 451-9326 TTY/NTS
(301) 402-4464 Fax
* NIH Section 508 Team: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = or, for Section 508 Guidance, http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html
* Looking for Training: AT100 - Section 508 Electronic & IT Training - Phase II: http://training.cit.nih.gov/coursedescription.aspx?courseID=CS0000000000852
* Consider the environment. Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to.
From: Hadi Rangin
Date: Mon, Oct 04 2010 10:45AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
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Hi Andrew,
I really don't want to repeat the same discussion that we had earlier this
year here at this forum publically unless you prefer it and find it
beneficial.
What you were suggesting at your presentation is not even a work-around
solution-- at least not from my perspective. You suggest the following to
make Adobe Connect accessible to screen reader users:
* Screen sharing -Screen sharing requires that the presenter
self-audio-describing information on your screen.
* Document sharing -documents can be shared in advance.
* VOIP -can be used accessibly, provided that captioning is available. Chat
pod can be used for speaking into the meeting.
Do you really expect that presenters would describe what they show or do
during their presentations? How many times end-users have on-time access to
the presenters to obtain the necessary documents in advance? How about the
on-the-fly web tour? How do I know who is in the room? How I can send a
private message to selected users? How I can read the text chat information
real-time or in a reasonable time?
I don't know how people use Adobe Connect in the higher education
environment because I can't use it but I see that Elluminate and Talking
Communities are used in a very fast pace and interactive environment and
users are required to interact promptly.
I think we all know that Adobe Connect is not accessible to screen reader
users and you admit it in your presentation and I like your honesty.
Anyway, last time I saw you talked about accessibility of Adobe Connect was
at the CSUN conference and it was over 6 months ago.
Would you be willing to setup a webinar on accessibility of Adobe Connect
with focus on screen reader accessibility in near future? I think there are
many people like myself who would like to learn more about the accessibility
features in particular for screen reader users in the upcoming Adobe
Connect.
Thanks & regards,
Hadi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Kirkpatrick" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Adobe Connect & accessibility
> Hadi,
> I'm surprised to hear you say that you are not aware of any redesign plan.
> This was one of the featured points of my talk at CSUN in San Diego last
> year, which you attended. Perhaps you mean that you haven't seen a spec
> for the planned changes - I can't tell from your message, but it is public
> information that improvements are planned.
>
> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/files/accessibility/assets/adobe_connect_csun2010.pdf
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> AWK
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Group Product Manager, Accessibility
> Adobe Systems
>
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
>
>
>
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Oct 04 2010 11:15AM
Subject: Re: Adobe Connect & accessibility
← Previous message | No next message
Hadi,
What I am taking exception to is your stating that you are unaware of any plans to make Connect accessible, nothing more.
There's a big difference between these two statements:
1) I did a study on web conferencing tools and Connect was not very accessible compared to other tools, and I don't know of any plans by Adobe to address the issues.
2) I did a study on web conferencing tools and Connect was not very accessible compared to other tools, and Adobe stated at the CSUN conference in March 2010 that they were working to make Connect accessible to assistive technology users.
My concern is that what you wrote sounded like #1 when I've worked to make sure that you and others are aware that there is a plan in place and that work is going on, which sounds like #2. Since a lot of software is developed on a 12-24 month release cycle, it is not unexpected that six months may pass without seeing a new version, but that does not change the fact that work is proceeding.
I've been discussing doing a webinar such as you describe with the product team. I'm looking forward to sharing our progress as soon as possible.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility