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Thread: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers

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From: Nicole
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 8:06AM
Subject: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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While I have been a long time lurker on this list, this is my first
posting. I am hoping to receive some clarification on SC 2.4.7 (Focus
Visible) as it relates to screen readers.

In the application I am testing, visible focus is present when
navigating through the submenu items (links) of a drop down/fly out menu
in any browser being tested. When the HTML submenu link receives
visible focus in the form of a dotted rectangle.

However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost. The
link context and the ability to interact with the submenu links are
still intact. It is just the visible focus that is no longer present.
Being a sighted user, I 'see' this. My question is...does this
constitute a failure for 2.4.7?


--
Nicole Bergstrom
Web Accessibility Consultant
Fairfax, Virginia
(c) 703-307-2438
(e) = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Paul J. Adam
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 8:21AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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I would say yes, focus visible is always required. The user could have low vision with a screen magnifier and screen reader running at the same time and then would need to see their focus location.

Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
www.deque.com

> On May 3, 2016, at 9:06 AM, Nicole < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> While I have been a long time lurker on this list, this is my first posting. I am hoping to receive some clarification on SC 2.4.7 (Focus Visible) as it relates to screen readers.
>
> In the application I am testing, visible focus is present when navigating through the submenu items (links) of a drop down/fly out menu in any browser being tested. When the HTML submenu link receives visible focus in the form of a dotted rectangle.
>
> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost. The link context and the ability to interact with the submenu links are still intact. It is just the visible focus that is no longer present. Being a sighted user, I 'see' this. My question is...does this constitute a failure for 2.4.7?
>
>
> --
> Nicole Bergstrom
> Web Accessibility Consultant
> Fairfax, Virginia
> (c) 703-307-2438
> (e) = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > > >

From: _mallory
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 11:02AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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Wait, are you getting to focussed items using tab or using arrows/
quicknav?

I don't always get visible focus when keyboard focus isn't at the
focusable, even when my SR-"cursor" is on the focusable.

Since browsers and CSS can't detect screen readers, I can't see how
one could have :focus styles working before a screen reader is
turned on but go away after one is turned on... but I can imagine
that maybe you're going from a keyboard cursor to a SR one.

To have visible "focus" on that, I believe needs to be built into
the screen reader (or magnifier, for example ZoomText has this
built in if you turn it on). There's been some talk on the orca
mailing list about adding that to Orca (as a plugin).

_mallory

On Tue, May 03, 2016 at 09:21:42AM -0500, Paul J. Adam wrote:
> I would say yes, focus visible is always required. The user could have low vision with a screen magnifier and screen reader running at the same time and then would need to see their focus location.
>
> Paul J. Adam
> Accessibility Evangelist
> www.deque.com
>
> > On May 3, 2016, at 9:06 AM, Nicole < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> > While I have been a long time lurker on this list, this is my first posting. I am hoping to receive some clarification on SC 2.4.7 (Focus Visible) as it relates to screen readers.
> >
> > In the application I am testing, visible focus is present when navigating through the submenu items (links) of a drop down/fly out menu in any browser being tested. When the HTML submenu link receives visible focus in the form of a dotted rectangle.
> >
> > However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost. The link context and the ability to interact with the submenu links are still intact. It is just the visible focus that is no longer present. Being a sighted user, I 'see' this. My question is...does this constitute a failure for 2.4.7?
> >
> >
> > --
> > Nicole Bergstrom
> > Web Accessibility Consultant
> > Fairfax, Virginia
> > (c) 703-307-2438
> > (e) = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > > > > > > > >
> > > >

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 11:52AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.

Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some other screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse mode. I noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus outline appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when you arrow to them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like normal behavior -- perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE have some known issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as the focus indicator is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the programmatic focus it should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus indicators based on programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not. There is a plug-in though for NVDA.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
703.637.8957 (Office)

Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!


From: Campbell, John
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 12:35PM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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Hi Nicole,

Criteria 2.4.7 being the visual indicator (visual not screen reader) passes
on visual inspection. JAWS and NVDA has focus issues when tabbing versus
arrowing. There are some that use magnification with screen reader rather
than document reader. If using the magnification with document reader, the
visual indicator should work.

Hope that helps.
John

--
John R. Campbell, MS, ATP, RET
Director of Accessibility & Access
Lehigh Carbon Community College
4525 Education Park Drive
Schnecksville PA 18078
http://www.lccc.edu
Office: 610.769.1337
Office: LB34
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

*"Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much." - Helen Keller*

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Tue, May 03 2016 9:38PM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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For those who may be unaware, I'll provide the link to the Focus
Highlight Plugin for NVDA which is the one I believe Jonathan meant when
he wrote, in part:

"There is a plug-in though for NVDA."


I believe this is a link to the most recent version:


http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html


In addition, I'll mention that both JFW and NVDA have ways to display
the textual representation of what each screen reader is speaking. Using
this can be faster for those who are not used to listening to
text-to-speech, and it can also save time, when writing reports, since
you can "copy and paste." Yes, I realize this may be slightly off-topic,
but I think many Windows users who have vision and are learning to test
with a screen reader may not realize that JFW and NVDA can do something
visually similar to what VO can do on the Mac.



Best,

Jennifer



On 5/3/2016 10:52 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.
> Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some other screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse mode. I noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus outline appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when you arrow to them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like normal behavior -- perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE have some known issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as the focus indicator is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the programmatic focus it should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus indicators based on programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not. There is a plug-in though for NVDA.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>
> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
> Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!
>
>
>

From: Sean Murphy
Date: Wed, May 04 2016 4:25AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
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Hi,

For those user's on the list who might not know how to invoke the feature you mention for Jaws and NVDA. How about you give instructions on turning it on.

Sean
> On 4 May 2016, at 1:38 PM, Jennifer Sutton < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> For those who may be unaware, I'll provide the link to the Focus Highlight Plugin for NVDA which is the one I believe Jonathan meant when he wrote, in part:
>
> "There is a plug-in though for NVDA."
>
>
> I believe this is a link to the most recent version:
>
>
> http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html
>
>
> In addition, I'll mention that both JFW and NVDA have ways to display the textual representation of what each screen reader is speaking. Using this can be faster for those who are not used to listening to text-to-speech, and it can also save time, when writing reports, since you can "copy and paste." Yes, I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but I think many Windows users who have vision and are learning to test with a screen reader may not realize that JFW and NVDA can do something visually similar to what VO can do on the Mac.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Jennifer
>
>
>
> On 5/3/2016 10:52 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>>> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.
>> Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some other screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse mode. I noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus outline appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when you arrow to them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like normal behavior -- perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE have some known issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as the focus indicator is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the programmatic focus it should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus indicators based on programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not. There is a plug-in though for NVDA.
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>> Jonathan Avila
>> Chief Accessibility Officer
>> SSB BART Group
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>>
>> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
>> Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!
>>
>>
>>

From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Wed, May 04 2016 8:09AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
← Previous message | Next message →

Thank you, Jennifer, for linking to that. For those of you who, like me,
are sighted accessibility professionals, you might find Focus Highlight
invaluable. I never really understood the way screen reader focusing
and buffers work until I installed that plug-in. Now I only barely
understand it, which is better than not understanding at all.

(As a keyboard/voice user, I've also written a Stylish style for Firefox
which always shows the keyboard focus, because I'm exasperated with
offscreen, hidden, or too-subtle to see focus. When I have finished
debugging some weirdness that happened with modals or certain off-screen
or Z-index conditions, I will be happy to share it.)

Deborah Kaplan

On Tue, 3 May 2016, Jennifer Sutton wrote:

> For those who may be unaware, I'll provide the link to the Focus
> Highlight Plugin for NVDA which is the one I believe Jonathan meant when
> he wrote, in part:
>
> "There is a plug-in though for NVDA."
>
>
> I believe this is a link to the most recent version:
>
>
> http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html
>
>
> In addition, I'll mention that both JFW and NVDA have ways to display
> the textual representation of what each screen reader is speaking. Using
> this can be faster for those who are not used to listening to
> text-to-speech, and it can also save time, when writing reports, since
> you can "copy and paste." Yes, I realize this may be slightly off-topic,
> but I think many Windows users who have vision and are learning to test
> with a screen reader may not realize that JFW and NVDA can do something
> visually similar to what VO can do on the Mac.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Jennifer
>
>
>
> On 5/3/2016 10:52 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>>> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.
>> Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an
> element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some other
> screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse mode. I
> noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus outline
> appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when you arrow to
> them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like normal behavior --
> perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE have some known
> issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as the focus indicator
> is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the programmatic focus it
> should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus indicators based on
> programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not. There is a plug-in
> though for NVDA.
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>> Jonathan Avila
>> Chief Accessibility Officer
>> SSB BART Group
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>>
>> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
>> Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!
>>
>>
>>

From: Zentz, Marlene
Date: Wed, May 04 2016 10:39AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
← Previous message | Next message →

Deborah,

Thanks for sharing this when you have it ready to go. I'm interested in seeing your solution.

Marlene


Marlene Zentz
Senior Instructional Designer/Accessibility Specialist
University of Montana
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
406-243-6434


From: Mike Barlow
Date: Wed, May 04 2016 10:47AM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
← Previous message | Next message →

Deborah, thanks I'd love to see your solution as well. I'm always looking
for solutions to give to coders to add to their pages to make them more
accessible.

*Mike Barlow*
Web Application Developer
Web Accessibility/Section 508 SME

Lancaster, Pa 17601
Office: 732.835-7557
Cell: 732.682.8226
e-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 12:39 PM, Zentz, Marlene < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Deborah,
>
> Thanks for sharing this when you have it ready to go. I'm interested in
> seeing your solution.
>
> Marlene
>
>
> Marlene Zentz
> Senior Instructional Designer/Accessibility Specialist
> University of Montana
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> 406-243-6434
>
>
>

From: James Nurthen
Date: Thu, May 05 2016 5:30PM
Subject: Re: Seeking input on SC 2.4.7 & Screen Readers
← Previous message | No next message

In Firefox you can also set preferences in about:config to always show a
focus indicator as well as changing the style of that iindicator. The main
one is *browser. display. focus_ring_on_anything
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_on_anything>;* The
following preferences are available

*browser. display. focus_background_color
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_background_color>;* String The
default color for the background of focused elements as a hex code. Default
value is *#117722*. Requires that *browser.display.use_focus_colors* be true
*browser. display. focus_ring_on_anything
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_on_anything>;* Boolean
*True*: Display the focus ring (normally only shown on links) on anything
*False* (default): Display the focus ring on links only
*browser. display. focus_ring_width
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.display.focus_ring_width>;* Integer
Determines
the display of the focus ring around focused elements.
*0*: Hide focus ring
*1* (default): Dots around focused elements will be displayed with a 1
pixel border
*(n)*: Display dots with a width of *n* pixels around focused elements
*browser. display. focus_text_color* String The default color for the text
of focused elements as a hex code. Default value is *#ffffff*. Requires
that *browser.display.use_focus_colors* be true
*browser. display. use_focus_colors* Boolean *True*: Set colors on focused
items according to preferences
*False* (default): Do not set colors on focused items
I've found that focus_ring_on_anything and focus_ring_width work pretty
well on most pages. Changing the colors works well on some pages but
sometimes causes text to become illegible on focus.

regards,
James

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 7:09 AM, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Thank you, Jennifer, for linking to that. For those of you who, like me,
> are sighted accessibility professionals, you might find Focus Highlight
> invaluable. I never really understood the way screen reader focusing
> and buffers work until I installed that plug-in. Now I only barely
> understand it, which is better than not understanding at all.
>
> (As a keyboard/voice user, I've also written a Stylish style for Firefox
> which always shows the keyboard focus, because I'm exasperated with
> offscreen, hidden, or too-subtle to see focus. When I have finished
> debugging some weirdness that happened with modals or certain off-screen
> or Z-index conditions, I will be happy to share it.)
>
> Deborah Kaplan
>
>
> On Tue, 3 May 2016, Jennifer Sutton wrote:
>
> For those who may be unaware, I'll provide the link to the Focus Highlight
>> Plugin for NVDA which is the one I believe Jonathan meant when he wrote, in
>> part:
>>
>> "There is a plug-in though for NVDA."
>>
>>
>> I believe this is a link to the most recent version:
>>
>>
>> http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html
>>
>>
>> In addition, I'll mention that both JFW and NVDA have ways to display the
>> textual representation of what each screen reader is speaking. Using this
>> can be faster for those who are not used to listening to text-to-speech,
>> and it can also save time, when writing reports, since you can "copy and
>> paste." Yes, I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but I think many
>> Windows users who have vision and are learning to test with a screen reader
>> may not realize that JFW and NVDA can do something visually similar to what
>> VO can do on the Mac.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Jennifer
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/3/2016 10:52 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>>
>>> However, when I enable JAWS or NVDA, this visible focus is lost.
>>>>
>>> Hi Nicole, with JAWS in virtual cursor mode the focus is not moved to an
>>>
>> element when you arrow to it -- only when you tab. With NVDA and some
>> other screen readers the element is focused when you arrow to it in browse
>> mode. I noticed that even though links in IE are focused by NVDA no focus
>> outline appears. In Firefox the focus outline does appear on links when
>> you arrow to them with NVDA. So what you are experiencing seems like
>> normal behavior -- perhaps with a bug in how NVDA and IE work. NVDA and IE
>> have some known issues and JAWS works this way by design. So as long as
>> the focus indicator is shown without AT running and the AT can identify the
>> programmatic focus it should be fine. Some ATs provide their own focus
>> indicators based on programmatic focus being set but JAWS and NVDA do not.
>> There is a plug-in though for NVDA.
>>
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>> Jonathan Avila
>>> Chief Accessibility Officer
>>> SSB BART Group
>>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>>> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>>>
>>> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog
>>> Check out our Digital Accessibility Webinars!
>>>
>>>
>>>