E-mail List Archives

Search E-mail List Archives for

Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)

From: Roel Van Gils
Date: Tue, Sep 19 2017 4:03AM
Subject: AT that get their information from the Accessibility Tree, other than screenreaders
No previous message | Next message →

Hi,

Screenreaders such as Jaws, NVDA, VoiceOver and WindowEyes, all rely on the Accessibility Tree that the OS exposes to them. Screenreaders narrate what's on the screen and offer ways to interact with it.

The 'web content' inside of a browser tab is in fact only one 'branch' of that tree. To us, 'web people', that's the most important and interesting branch of that tree. It's the only branch we can directly manipulate using semantic markup and WAI-ARIA attributes.

Now, when learning and (teaching) about techniques like ARIA, we often mention that ARIA enhances the experience for 'users of assistive technology, *such as* screenreaders'. I'm wondering if that's entirely accurate. Does anyone know of any other types of Assistive Technology (hardware or software, aimed at users with any type of disability) that gets is information from the 'web content branches' of the OS Accessibility Tree?

The only one that comes to my mind, is perhaps Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS), although I haven't been able to test it (since they don't have a trial version, and it's pretty expensive to buy). I can imagine a situation in which a motor disabled person could say things like "Open dropdown 'Language' ... Select Dutch' or "Press button 'Submit'". As a front-end developer, I would expect that DNS would rely on the Accessible Tree to make this happen, so if my submit button is actually a <div role="button">, this should work.

I'm eager to broaden my knowledge on this subject :)

Thanks!
Roel


--
Roel Van Gils
Inclusive Design & Accessibility Consultant

Tel.: +32 473 88 18 06
Skype: roelvangils
Twitter: twitter.com/roelvangils
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/roelvangils

From:
Date: Tue, Sep 19 2017 6:21AM
Subject: Re: AT that get their information from the Accessibility Tree, other than screenreaders
← Previous message | Next message →

On 19/09/2017 11:03, Roel Van Gils wrote:
> Screenreaders such as Jaws, NVDA, VoiceOver and WindowEyes, all rely on the Accessibility Tree that the OS exposes to them. Screenreaders narrate what's on the screen and offer ways to interact with it.
>
> The 'web content' inside of a browser tab is in fact only one 'branch' of that tree. To us, 'web people', that's the most important and interesting branch of that tree. It's the only branch we can directly manipulate using semantic markup and WAI-ARIA attributes.

As developers we can only manipulate the DOM tree. The browser is then
responsible for taking the DOM tree and using it to create the
accessibility tree.

>
> Now, when learning and (teaching) about techniques like ARIA, we often mention that ARIA enhances the experience for 'users of assistive technology, *such as* screenreaders'. I'm wondering if that's entirely accurate. Does anyone know of any other types of Assistive Technology (hardware or software, aimed at users with any type of disability) that gets is information from the 'web content branches' of the OS Accessibility Tree?

All AT use the accessibility tree. This includes speech recognition
tools, screen magnifiers, screen readers, and quite possibly others besides.

Use of the accessibility tree is not the same as support for ARIA
though. For the moment only screen readers support ARIA with any
conviction. The exception is Dragon Naturally Speaking 13, which has
limited support for ARIA too.


> I'm eager to broaden my knowledge on this subject :)

Hope this helps.

Léonie.

--
@LeonieWatson @ = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = tink.uk carpe diem

From: Graham Armfield
Date: Tue, Sep 19 2017 6:40AM
Subject: Re: AT that get their information from the Accessibility Tree, other than screenreaders
← Previous message | No next message

Léonie said:

> Use of the accessibility tree is not the same as support for ARIA though.
> For the moment only screen readers support ARIA with any conviction. The
> exception is Dragon Naturally Speaking 13, which has limited support for
> ARIA too.
>
>
I can confirm that Dragon 13 and 14 do support ARIA up to a point -
including the role attribute.

Regards
Graham Armfield