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Thread: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings

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Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)

From: Jim Homme
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 1:10PM
Subject: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Hi,
If someone would please guide me in this area, thanks ahead of time. I'm using JAWS 18. I was looking at a site that I thought was using ARIA Assertive. The developer said it was using ARIA polite, and I went in and tried to look at the tags with the JAWS key stroke that shows the outward nestings of tags, and sure enough, I did see that assertive was being used. The symptom, though, is that JAWS is still being interrupted between key strokes. I tried to make sure that JAWS was set up correctly but can't seem to locate the right spot in the Settings Center. Can anyone point me to where to go to make sure that JAWS is set up correctly for this testing? I think the same question would also be in order for NVDA, but I haven't yet attempted to look through its settings for ARIA settings.

Thanks.

Jim
=========Jim Homme,
Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
412-787-8567,
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
E+R=O

From: JP Jamous
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 1:26PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Jim,

Is this a permanent setting or a quick one for testing purposes?

You can always use Insert + Space followed by z to load the default settings for a quick test.

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 4:20PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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my advice for testing is you should only run default settings the only
settings i change on my test systems is typing echo i use words and
punctuation. if your running defaults and the bad behavior happens that is
what you want to work for. we can't expect a user will know ware the
settings are to change and we can't expect they will read documentation.
the best example of this is the google documentation that says how to set
up your screen reader no one ever reads that before they scream about how
bad google docs is. this is some thing i know for a fact because if they
had read the documentation it would tell them what they are screaming ming
about would be fixed if they followed instructions grin lucy

Lucia Greco
Web Accessibility Evangelist
IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces


On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 12:26 PM, JP Jamous < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Jim,
>
> Is this a permanent setting or a quick one for testing purposes?
>
> You can always use Insert + Space followed by z to load the default
> settings for a quick test.
>
>

From: Thomas Lee McKeithan II
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 4:23PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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I concur. Using the out-of-box settings yields unskewed results.


Respectfully,
Thomas Lee McKeithan II | Optum Technology Solutions
Electronic Accessibility Engineer, UX Design Studio (UXDS)
MD018, 6220 Old Dobbin Lane, Columbia, MD, 21045, USA

T +1 443-896-0432
M +1 202-276-6437
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.optum.com
 


From: Jim Homme
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 4:46PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Hi Lucy,
I want to know what JAWS defaults to and make sure I understand that it is set to those settings. Then I want to understand how JAWS is supposed to treat live regions. Please forgive me for possibly wrong terms. After that, I want to retest and view source to ensure that the code is in that renders what I'm supposed to see. So far I have only made JAWS run faster and changed some keyboard settings and minimal other things. I don't know where to look for ARIA settings to see what it is set to, nor do I see documentation on what the company thinks JAWS is supposed to act like under various conditions, but I did run into Surf's Up, which gives *some info.

Thanks.

Jim


=========Jim Homme,
Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
412-787-8567,
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
E+R=O

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 5:01PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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the best way to make sure your running the default settings is to go to the
jaws menu in the start menu and there you can explore to the users
settings folder its call inu. and just select all in that folder and
remove every thing from that folder.. then all your settings will be
reset to defaults.

if you want to keep some of your settings you can also just run default at
the time of testing settings but i forget what the command line string is
to type at the run dialog.

there is no good place to find these settings and sadly there are no
settings. for aria jaws makes up the way they follow the stander and its
some times hard to know if its jaws causing some thing to read funny or if
its coded wrong. i had this problem just yesterday in a clinic jaws is now
not reading some tables that are coded properly because jaws thinks they
are layout tables when they are not. this is why we need to test in as
many screen readers as we can. but nun of us have all the time we need.
Jim any time you want to call to walk thru some of these things please feel
free i am more then glad to help lucy

Lucia Greco
Web Accessibility Evangelist
IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces


On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:46 PM, Jim Homme < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Hi Lucy,
> I want to know what JAWS defaults to and make sure I understand that it is
> set to those settings. Then I want to understand how JAWS is supposed to
> treat live regions. Please forgive me for possibly wrong terms. After that,
> I want to retest and view source to ensure that the code is in that renders
> what I'm supposed to see. So far I have only made JAWS run faster and
> changed some keyboard settings and minimal other things. I don't know where
> to look for ARIA settings to see what it is set to, nor do I see
> documentation on what the company thinks JAWS is supposed to act like under
> various conditions, but I did run into Surf's Up, which gives *some info.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
>
> =========> Jim Homme,
> Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
> Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
> Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
> 412-787-8567,
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-
> accessible-technology-solutions
> E+R=O
>
>

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 5:15PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Screen readers do not always follow the recommendation of aria when it
comes to live regions.
I don´t blame them, maybe the recommendations of ARIA are not
technically feasable, because of the way screen readers, browsers and
text-to-speech engines interact.
I wish I could find clear documentation on how they interact and if
there really is a difference between, e.g. aria-live="assertive" and
aria-live="polite".
The ARIA spec has suggestions on the different behaviors.



On 12/6/16, Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> the best way to make sure your running the default settings is to go to the
> jaws menu in the start menu and there you can explore to the users
> settings folder its call inu. and just select all in that folder and
> remove every thing from that folder.. then all your settings will be
> reset to defaults.
>
> if you want to keep some of your settings you can also just run default at
> the time of testing settings but i forget what the command line string is
> to type at the run dialog.
>
> there is no good place to find these settings and sadly there are no
> settings. for aria jaws makes up the way they follow the stander and its
> some times hard to know if its jaws causing some thing to read funny or if
> its coded wrong. i had this problem just yesterday in a clinic jaws is now
> not reading some tables that are coded properly because jaws thinks they
> are layout tables when they are not. this is why we need to test in as
> many screen readers as we can. but nun of us have all the time we need.
> Jim any time you want to call to walk thru some of these things please feel
> free i am more then glad to help lucy
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Accessibility Evangelist
> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:46 PM, Jim Homme < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> Hi Lucy,
>> I want to know what JAWS defaults to and make sure I understand that it is
>> set to those settings. Then I want to understand how JAWS is supposed to
>> treat live regions. Please forgive me for possibly wrong terms. After
>> that,
>> I want to retest and view source to ensure that the code is in that
>> renders
>> what I'm supposed to see. So far I have only made JAWS run faster and
>> changed some keyboard settings and minimal other things. I don't know
>> where
>> to look for ARIA settings to see what it is set to, nor do I see
>> documentation on what the company thinks JAWS is supposed to act like
>> under
>> various conditions, but I did run into Surf's Up, which gives *some info.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>> =========>> Jim Homme,
>> Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
>> Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
>> Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
>> 412-787-8567,
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>> http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-
>> accessible-technology-solutions
>> E+R=O
>>
>>

From: Jim Homme
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 5:38PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Hi,
This is absolutely not meant to bash screen reader vendors, because I would be on Public Assistance without a screen reader. I can understand why it frustrates developers who have a good heart, and try to follow standards, only to find out that they have spent that time in vain. I completely realize that a lot of ARIA support is still evolving. I probably shouldn't be posting this here. I'm trying to post in the best possible spirit. It makes accessibility advocates look bad when we can't count on AT stepping up and adhering to them, no matter why. Please forgive this possible negativity.

Jim


=========Jim Homme,
Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
412-787-8567,
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
E+R=O

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Tue, Dec 06 2016 7:28PM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
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Well. Part of the problem is that the ARIA standards are largely
formulated without participation from the screen reader vendors.
There is some participation, for instance from Apple, but it feels
like the assistive technology vendors have too little participation in
a standard they are meant to implement (along with the browsers).
I honestly don't think we're bashing anybody, just pointing out that
accessibility is tricky, because it depends on so many agents having a
shared understanding of a standard and the technical ability to
implement the standard in their user agents.
Let's remember that:
* The author writes the code.
* The browser takes the code, creates the DOM and maps it to the
operating systems accessibility API (which has to support all the
functionality desired by the standard, we have 5 or 6 different
accessibility APIs across the major operating systems).
* The assistive technology has to query the accessibility API
correctly and turn it into an experience that balances what is
dictated by the standard with what the end users are used to, and what
works best for them. Keep in mind that e.g. a screen reader may not
have direct control over the text-to-speech engine, or braille
display, there is yet another layer of communication there that has to
support the desired behavior.
And, like with any other interaction, the users have to know their
technology and use it correctly.

We're constantly pushing the envelope, creating new web-based controls
and interactions, and it is hard for standards and technologies to
keep up.
It can be done. But we need a combination of activism, shared
understanding and patience to make things happen.



On 12/6/16, Jim Homme < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi,
> This is absolutely not meant to bash screen reader vendors, because I would
> be on Public Assistance without a screen reader. I can understand why it
> frustrates developers who have a good heart, and try to follow standards,
> only to find out that they have spent that time in vain. I completely
> realize that a lot of ARIA support is still evolving. I probably shouldn't
> be posting this here. I'm trying to post in the best possible spirit. It
> makes accessibility advocates look bad when we can't count on AT stepping up
> and adhering to them, no matter why. Please forgive this possible
> negativity.
>
> Jim
>
>
> =========> Jim Homme,
> Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
> Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
> Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
> 412-787-8567,
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
> E+R=O
>
>

From: JP Jamous
Date: Wed, Dec 07 2016 1:06AM
Subject: Re: Making Sure of ARIA Screen Reading Settings
← Previous message | No next message

Jim,

JAWS includes most of the settings you want to check out in the Settings Center. Press Insert + f2 and locate the Settings Center. Press Enter on it to open it.

As soon as it opens, press CTRL + shift+ d, to ensure you are changing the default settings or global settings. Typically JAWS opens the Settings Center to whatever application you have opened in the foreground if that application exists in its list of supported applications.

As Lucy mentioned, all of your JAWS settings are located in,
%USERPROFILE%AppDataRoamingFreedom ScientificJAWS18.0Settings
There are 2 folders there. The ENU folder contains app settings and that's where your default and custom settings for apps will be located.

The VoiceProfiles folder contains the various profiles you have customized for the JAWS cursors and speech rate, etc.

I have yet to find a location in JAWS that talks about ARIA. That is in the JAWS application itself. I typically review the enhancements from the download page to find out what JAWS is now supporting or I read the What's New topic in the help menu. The latter only works for major upgrades and not for updates like the one release this week, which fixed most of the MSWord 2016 issues I was facing.

To run JAWS in default mode, as lucy mentioned, you have to unload JAWS from memory first.
Open the Run dialog using Windows key + r
Type what's in the quotes always substituting the JAWS version you are using where the major number exists, "JAWS18 /default"
Press Enter and JAWS will load the default settings and continue to use them until you quit JAWS.