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From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Wed, Nov 11 2020 1:59PM
Subject: Accessible fillable form PDF - samples? testing methodology?
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Hi everyone,

I am working on testing some fillable form PDFs for their accessibility,
namely can they be used with NVDA with the proper keyboard interaction,
focus and labels, so that someone using a screen reader could reasonably
fill out the form successfully without frustration or confusion. Does
anyone know where I can find a good example of a properly labelled, tagged,
etc accessible fillable form PDF, for me to use as my guide for how NVDA
should ideally be reading out the form elements?

Or if anyone knows of articles about how to test a fillable form and what
behavior the form should display when using NVDA, that would be great too!
Right now I have a few PDFs that pass the Acrobat accessibility checker (I
know, it only has limited value in itself ha ha) but aren't reading out in
NVDA as clearly as they could be (probably lack of clear input labelling)
or not smoothly moving by keyboard between the inputs and labels or other
text around the input spaces. It's possible that I, a sighted user testing
with NVDA, am missing how I should be moving within the form by keyboard
that a regular NVDA user would know already, so I am happy to learn how to
improve my testing to be more natural if possible.

Thanks in advance for any help,

*===*
*Christine Hogenkamp*
Front-end Developer

CONTEXT CREATIVE
317 ADELAIDE ST. W., #500 | TORONTO, ON CANADA | M5V 1P9
<https://maps.google.com/?q=317+ADELAIDE+ST.+W.,+%23500%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+TORONTO,+ON+CANADA%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+M5V+1P9&entry=gmail&source=g>

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Nov 11 2020 3:07PM
Subject: Re: Accessible fillable form PDF - samples? testing methodology?
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There are 2 issues in your question:
1) What's required to make an accessible PDF Form, per the combination of
PDF/UA-1 and WCAG accessibility standards.
2) How well does NVDA (and other screen readers) recognize and process a
compliant PDF form.

For #1, there are 3 resources:
- Karen McCall's book on accessible PDF forms
(https://www.karlencommunications.com/products.htm).

- PubCom's online course in making accessible PDF forms
(https://www.pubcom.com/classes/508-classes.shtml#formsINDD). We'll have a
session in January-February, after the holidays. (Disclosure, PubCom is my
consulting and training firm.)

- Rob Haverty's (Adobe) seminars at Accessing Higher Ground (last year
https://accessinghigherground.org/introduction-to-accessible-pdf-documents-2
/)


- - -
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
- - -
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting . training . development . design . sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
- - -
Latest blog-newsletter - Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text

From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Thu, Nov 12 2020 2:37PM
Subject: Re: Accessible fillable form PDF - samples? testing methodology?
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Thanks so much for the links, Bevi - you summed up my two questions
perfectly. I will check out the resources you provided!

Also waving hello because I literally just sat through your Alt Text
webinar, which was fantastic and super-helpful! I will be passing on the
companion webinar PDF to my team for us to discuss, it was especially great
hearing someone give suggestions about how to do alt text for complex
elements like graphs which we have struggled with in the past.

You are such a busy, helpful person with all this information at your
fingertips! An absolute treasure :D

*===*
*Christine Hogenkamp*
Front-end Developer

CONTEXT CREATIVE
317 ADELAIDE ST. W., #500 | TORONTO, ON CANADA | M5V 1P9
<https://maps.google.com/?q=317+ADELAIDE+ST.+W.,+%23500%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+TORONTO,+ON+CANADA%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+M5V+1P9&entry=gmail&source=g>


> From: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:07:27 -0500
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible fillable form PDF - samples? testing
> methodology?
> There are 2 issues in your question:
> 1) What's required to make an accessible PDF Form, per the combination of
> PDF/UA-1 and WCAG accessibility standards.
> 2) How well does NVDA (and other screen readers) recognize and process a
> compliant PDF form.
>
> For #1, there are 3 resources:
> - Karen McCall's book on accessible PDF forms
> (https://www.karlencommunications.com/products.htm).
>
> - PubCom's online course in making accessible PDF forms
> (https://www.pubcom.com/classes/508-classes.shtml#formsINDD). We'll have a
> session in January-February, after the holidays. (Disclosure, PubCom is my
> consulting and training firm.)
>
> - Rob Haverty's (Adobe) seminars at Accessing Higher Ground (last year
>
> https://accessinghigherground.org/introduction-to-accessible-pdf-documents-2
> /)
>
>
> - - -
> Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> - - -
> PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
> consulting . training . development . design . sec. 508 services
> Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
> - - -
> Latest blog-newsletter - Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text
>
>