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Thread: visual scrolling with screen readers
Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)
From: David Engebretson Jr
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 1:03PM
Subject: visual scrolling with screen readers
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I often share my screen reader findings with sighted developers. Sometimes focus is not visually on the screen so the sighted folks don't know where I am on the page.
Is there a prescribed method for jumping visual focus to the same point that screen reader focus is?
In JAWS I thought JAWSKey+ctrl+delete was supposed to do this but it doesn't always work.
Any suggestions for consistently showing where screen reader focus is?
Much appreciated,
David
David Engebretson Jr.
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From: JP Jamous
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 1:13PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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1. Open your browser
2. Press Alt + space bar and maximize it
3. JAWS might lose focus, it's ok.
4. Press Alt + tab to get the focus back on the browser
5. Press CTRL + Home and your sighted audience should be able to follow you
I try to take advantage of the virtual tracker in JAWS which nmakes it easier for sighted users to see where my virtual cursor is in the DOM. I do lots of presentations to sighted audience on regular bases. If the above does not work, then there is a scrolling problem between JAWS and the browser.
--------------------
JP Jamous
Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer
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--------------------
From: Wolfgang Berndorfer
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 2:48PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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I use JAWS (at about 95% of time) and sometimes Zoomtext to see, what JAWS
doesn't tell me. But both run paralell on my system.
My sighted colloegues recognise my focus via visual indication of ZoomText
(Red rect around the focussed in default).
Very helpful for cooperation with sighted collegues and sensibilisations.
But not always working. Didn't try to reconstruct issues yet.
And I couldn't try the 2018 Fusion of Jaws and Zoomtext.
Wolfgang
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
von David Engebretson Jr
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 11. Oktober 2018 21:03
An: WebAIM Discussion List
Betreff: [WebAIM] visual scrolling with screen readers
I often share my screen reader findings with sighted developers. Sometimes
focus is not visually on the screen so the sighted folks dont know where I
am on the page.
Is there a prescribed method for jumping visual focus to the same point that
screen reader focus is?
In JAWS I thought JAWSKey+ctrl+delete was supposed to do this but it doesnt
always work.
Any suggestions for consistently showing where screen reader focus is?
Much appreciated,
David
David Engebretson Jr.
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: David Engebretson Jr
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 2:58PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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"should" is the optimal word... *smile*
What you describe is what I do but there are intermittent issues. Sometimes
it works and sometimes it doesn't. It looks like the virtual tracker is
enabled by default for all browsers. Does NVDA have similar functionality?
I haven't found anything about it in documentation.
Are there certain types of elements that just won't allow a screen reader to
virtually and visually track at the same time?
I'm wondering if Fusion might be a good way to go. Fusion wouldn't allow
the virtual cursor to not track the visuals, right?
Thanks for your thoughts,
David
From: JP Jamous
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 3:19PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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I don't have any solid answer David to any of your questions. It does make sense as to why screen readers would not scroll the page. They are already looping through the DOM and extracting information. It would be quite hard if not impossible for them to know where the visual part is at the bottom of the screen.
I usually inform my audience that if they cannot see where my cursor is to speak up. I then play it by ear based on what I am presenting.
Try to tab if your audience inform you that thy cannot see where you are at. That tends to help in certain situations.
--------------------
JP Jamous
Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer
E-Mail Me |Join My LinkedIn Network
--------------------
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 3:31PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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The JAWS visual tracker is an option in verbosity and is only available on Windows 10.
There is a focus plugin for NVDA that is useful to show where it is.
https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html
Jonathan
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 11, 2018, at 4:58 PM, David Engebretson Jr < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >> wrote:
"should" is the optimal word... *smile*
What you describe is what I do but there are intermittent issues. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It looks like the virtual tracker is enabled by default for all browsers. Does NVDA have similar functionality? I haven't found anything about it in documentation.
Are there certain types of elements that just won't allow a screen reader to virtually and visually track at the same time?
I'm wondering if Fusion might be a good way to go. Fusion wouldn't allow the virtual cursor to not track the visuals, right?
Thanks for your thoughts,
David
From: Jonathan Cohn
Date: Thu, Oct 11 2018 7:08PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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A bit of code that I experience uses significant number of background or font images together with an off screen span for links / buttons. These don't work well with NVDA currently, and I expect that since what JAWS would actually be speaking is off screen that scrolling follows probably would not work well, and actually if badly implemented would move scroll position to as close as possible to the off screen content.
Jonathan Cohn
> On Oct 11, 2018, at 4:48 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I use JAWS (at about 95% of time) and sometimes Zoomtext to see, what JAWS
> doesn't tell me. But both run paralell on my system.
>
> My sighted colloegues recognise my focus via visual indication of ZoomText
> (Red rect around the focussed in default).
>
> Very helpful for cooperation with sighted collegues and sensibilisations.
> But not always working. Didn't try to reconstruct issues yet.
>
> And I couldn't try the 2018 Fusion of Jaws and Zoomtext.
>
> Wolfgang
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
> von David Engebretson Jr
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 11. Oktober 2018 21:03
> An: WebAIM Discussion List
> Betreff: [WebAIM] visual scrolling with screen readers
>
> I often share my screen reader findings with sighted developers. Sometimes
> focus is not visually on the screen so the sighted folks don't know where I
> am on the page.
>
> Is there a prescribed method for jumping visual focus to the same point that
> screen reader focus is?
>
> In JAWS I thought JAWSKey+ctrl+delete was supposed to do this but it doesn't
> always work.
>
> Any suggestions for consistently showing where screen reader focus is?
>
> Much appreciated,
> David
>
> David Engebretson Jr.
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > > > >
> > > >
From: Marissa Sapega
Date: Fri, Oct 12 2018 11:51AM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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The Paciello Group's JAWS testing tool (https://www.paciellogroup.com/products/jaws-inspect/) has a feature - Speech Viewer - that gives you a live text view of JAWS speech as JAWS navigates through a page. You could use that to help determine where screen reader focus is.
Thank you,
Marissa Sapega
On 10/11/18, 9:08 PM, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Jonathan Cohn" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = on behalf of = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
A bit of code that I experience uses significant number of background or font images together with an off screen span for links / buttons. These don't work well with NVDA currently, and I expect that since what JAWS would actually be speaking is off screen that scrolling follows probably would not work well, and actually if badly implemented would move scroll position to as close as possible to the off screen content.
Jonathan Cohn
> On Oct 11, 2018, at 4:48 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I use JAWS (at about 95% of time) and sometimes Zoomtext to see, what JAWS
> doesn't tell me. But both run paralell on my system.
>
> My sighted colloegues recognise my focus via visual indication of ZoomText
> (Red rect around the focussed in default).
>
> Very helpful for cooperation with sighted collegues and sensibilisations.
> But not always working. Didn't try to reconstruct issues yet.
>
> And I couldn't try the 2018 Fusion of Jaws and Zoomtext.
>
> Wolfgang
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
> von David Engebretson Jr
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 11. Oktober 2018 21:03
> An: WebAIM Discussion List
> Betreff: [WebAIM] visual scrolling with screen readers
>
> I often share my screen reader findings with sighted developers. Sometimes
> focus is not visually on the screen so the sighted folks don't know where I
> am on the page.
>
> Is there a prescribed method for jumping visual focus to the same point that
> screen reader focus is?
>
> In JAWS I thought JAWSKey+ctrl+delete was supposed to do this but it doesn't
> always work.
>
> Any suggestions for consistently showing where screen reader focus is?
>
> Much appreciated,
> David
>
> David Engebretson Jr.
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> > > > >
> > > >
From: David Engebretson Jr
Date: Fri, Oct 12 2018 1:48PM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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That's interesting. Thanks for the link.
What I really want is for sighted people to see (at all times) where focus
is in the screen reader. If focus is on the virtual cursor somewhere off of
the visual presentation then they are confused. There's enough confusion
with regards to interaction with a screen reader. *smile* No use adding
more confusion when screen reader focus is somewhere off the visual
perspective.
Must be a scrolling issue I'm experiencing. Off to research open bugs in
the JAWS bug tracker.
Thanks again,
David
From:
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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On 12/10/2018 20:48, David Engebretson Jr wrote:
> What I really want is for sighted people to see (at all times) where
> focus is in the screen reader. If focus is on the virtual cursor
> somewhere off of the visual presentation then they are confused.
> There's enough confusion with regards to interaction with a screen
> reader. *smile* No use adding more confusion when screen reader focus
> is somewhere off the visual perspective.
I haven't been following this thread carefully, but as I understand it,
the capability you're looking for is available in most screen readers.
Jaws should indicate which element it's focused on (either by tab focus
or virtual cursor focus), by highlighting it in green.
NVDA has a plugin that will put a border around the element that
currently has focus [1]. VoiceOver also puts a border around the element
that has focus.
Narrator does it differently. If you enable Dev Mode (whilst Narrator is
running), it blacks out everything on screen except the thing that has
Narrator focus. Of all the techniques, this one makes teaching people
how to understand screen reader focus the easiest I think.
The problem is what happens when the thing the screen reader is focused
on is not available visually. By definition, it can't then be
highlighted, and routing the cursor to that point on the page will
apparently fail.
It's this mismatch (amongst other things) that is the reason I tend to
advise against using off-screen content whenever possible. Not that this
helps answer your question I realise!
If you can share an example of the problem you're experiencing, that
might help throw up some possible solutions though.
Léonie.
[1] https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/focusHighlight.en.html--
--
@LeonieWatson @ = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = Carpe diem
From: David Engebretson Jr
Date: Sat, Oct 13 2018 11:26AM
Subject: Re: visual scrolling with screen readers
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Actually, that really helps. It might be that the content is not visible...
I don't have specific examples at this point but I've seen it happen on
SiteImprove and on JIRA. I'll keep better track of this in future and be
better prepared to analyze the issue now.
Thanks so much,
David