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Thread: help making a hard choice

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From: Lucy Greco
Date: Sun, Jun 02 2013 7:24PM
Subject: help making a hard choice
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Hello:
I have to pick between two produces that as far as I am conserved have
serious access problems. These are two specific survey tools for a
specific kind of survey. I can't say much more about the product. But the
lesser of the two produces when I tab through the page it does not read
the questions. However if I move with arrow keys I can find a question
and then move to the buttons below the questions in order as long as I
remember the direction I would say its ok. However that product has so
many other drawbacks that makes it all-around a bad product for what we
need.
The other product is perfect for what we need but has so much crap on the
screen it takes a lot of will power to get through it. they have about 10
skip links allow on the page witch were well intentioned but far to over
kill for example on a page with only one question it has a skip to
question and a skip to answer link. Both at the top with a bunch of other
stuff like error reporting links even without errors. The other problem
with the over kill is that when you have a ranking set of questions in a
table again it is over verbose a screen reader user needs to move
through the table with aero keys only because otherwise you miss the
questions completely but you then get each chose as two key strokes and
read twice. So it reads
Q chose 1 chose one radio button chose 2 chose 2 radio button and so on
with two key strokes per answer.
The other one that is not so good also has the problem of not telling you
witch choice you made. How can I chose between these two products. Oh
and it's an RFP so I can't ask one of them if they can fix it before I
make the choice. Any help would be more then welcome urgently Lucy

Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces

From: Robert Jaquiss
Date: Sun, Jun 02 2013 9:14PM
Subject: Re: help making a hard choice
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Hello:

The National Federation of the Blind has successfully used Survey
Monkey. Some care is needed when setting up surveys in order to make them
accessible. Hope this helps.


Regards,

Robert

From: Catherine Roy
Date: Sun, Jun 02 2013 9:34PM
Subject: Re: help making a hard choice
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Hi Lucy,

With the limited and cryptic information you have provided, I am
guessing you need a survey tool or service and are asking for advice on
which is the lesser of two evils. It is very difficult to answer your
questions without having access to the two tools you reference. The only
thing I can add here is that in all the survey tools I have tried out,
Lime Survey is the best: professional, usable, accessible, standards
compliant, open source and free. You can host it yourself or can have it
hosted free (although some features may not be available if you use a
free hosting service offered). I have used this tool extensively and
have only good things to say about it (so far ;)

https://www.limesurvey.org/

Best regards,


Catherine

--
Catherine Roy
http://www.catherine-roy.net



On 02/06/2013 9:24 PM, Lucy Greco wrote:
> Hello:
> I have to pick between two produces that as far as I am conserved have
> serious access problems. These are two specific survey tools for a
> specific kind of survey. I can't say much more about the product. But the
> lesser of the two produces when I tab through the page it does not read
> the questions. However if I move with arrow keys I can find a question
> and then move to the buttons below the questions in order as long as I
> remember the direction I would say its ok. However that product has so
> many other drawbacks that makes it all-around a bad product for what we
> need.
> The other product is perfect for what we need but has so much crap on the
> screen it takes a lot of will power to get through it. they have about 10
> skip links allow on the page witch were well intentioned but far to over
> kill for example on a page with only one question it has a skip to
> question and a skip to answer link. Both at the top with a bunch of other
> stuff like error reporting links even without errors. The other problem
> with the over kill is that when you have a ranking set of questions in a
> table again it is over verbose a screen reader user needs to move
> through the table with aero keys only because otherwise you miss the
> questions completely but you then get each chose as two key strokes and
> read twice. So it reads
> Q chose 1 chose one radio button chose 2 chose 2 radio button and so on
> with two key strokes per answer.
> The other one that is not so good also has the problem of not telling you
> witch choice you made. How can I chose between these two products. Oh
> and it's an RFP so I can't ask one of them if they can fix it before I
> make the choice. Any help would be more then welcome urgently Lucy
>
> Greco
> Web Access Analyst
> IST-Campus Technology Services
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
> > >

From: Lucy Greco
Date: Sun, Jun 02 2013 11:19PM
Subject: Re: help making a hard choice
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Hello:
Sorry no its not really a survey tool per say. Sorry I have to be so
cryptic but I am under a nda and can't give out to much information. The
problem is the two tools I am being asked to choose from are the only
two products that responded to an RFP and I can't even go to the vender's
and ask them if the problems I saw are inherent in their products or just
do to the speed we had to check these tools. It's really quite
frustrating because the one vender that seemed to really understand access
and said all the write things was the lest useable product. I have used
Lime Survey tool and yes it does a exhalent job. Thanks Lucy

Lucia Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Mon, Jun 03 2013 2:49AM
Subject: Re: help making a hard choice
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Lucy,

Here are my thoughts for what they are worth.

I am guessing you might be finding it difficult to pick one because the differences between the products (for this aspect of the products) is not significant. You'll have to look at whatever other criteria you have to pick one. If that still is not satisfactory, you need to discuss the matter with whoever else might be involved in making the decision.

At that point, I think you will need to discuss the expectations and short comings with the vendors to determine what they will commit to doing to remedy the issues--if their product is selected. Hopefully, that will then provide you with enough information to make a choice.





From: Shuttlesworth, Rachel
Date: Mon, Jun 03 2013 8:00AM
Subject: Re: help making a hard choice
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I doubt this is any help right now, Lucy, but may be an idea for the
future.

My university has started building into any tech-related RFPs a statement
about accessibility and a request for the product's VPAT. We can then use
their accessibility status in the evaluation process. Below is the text we
include in the RFP.

Message to vendors:
Like many higher education institutions, the University of Alabama is
increasingly concerned with ensuring that it complies with ADA and Section
508 requirements regarding disability accommodations. Because our
institution uses your products or services, it is important to make sure
we have documentation regarding how you address accommodations. Please
send a copy of or link to the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template for
your product(s), as well as any other relevant information to aid us in
this effort. Information about the VPAT and a template for its completion
are available here:
http://www.itic.org/index.php?src=gendocs&;ref=vpat&category=resources.
These resources will be kept on file for use at The University of Alabama
and
will need to be updated when the product changes. The VPAT responses will
be
used to aid UA in evaluating products and services and will be added to a
publically available repository of accessibility information.


Rachel

Dr. Rachel S. Thompson
Director, Emerging Technology and Accessibility
Center for Instructional Technology
University of Alabama







On 06/03/13 12:19 AM, "Lucy Greco" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

Hello:
Sorry no its not really a survey tool per say. Sorry I have to be so
cryptic but I am under a nda and can't give out to much information. The
problem is the two tools I am being asked to choose from are the only
two products that responded to an RFP and I can't even go to the vender's
and ask them if the problems I saw are inherent in their products or just
do to the speed we had to check these tools. It's really quite
frustrating because the one vender that seemed to really understand access
and said all the write things was the lest useable product. I have used
Lime Survey tool and yes it does a exhalent job. Thanks Lucy

Lucia Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces