Hi,
I have built a course and am testing the screen reader. None of my ARIA labels or ALT text are showing or being read. I also have issue with most of my components-
*Accordion content does not read
*Accordion too quick, doesnt give me a chance to figure out how to open it before moving on.
*Flip cards - totally misses the section not giving me time to flip so more content being missed
*Tabs - same to fast reads the tabs and moves straight on
what am I not doing please?
What screenreader are you using?
If you’ve not used a screen reader before they can sometimes be quite unintuitive at first* and you’ll definitely want to read the usage guide for whichever one you’re using
* TBH I still find them quite unintuitive even after years working in accessibility!
Thank you Matt, I don’t know to be honest I am told to click on the A)) on the top of the page. My worry is also that a lot of people use this so that they can listen and continue to work :-/
Just asked - I am listening to Microsoft Edge’s Accessibility reader. would you recommend I have Jaws or NVDS (?)
It’s been a while since I’ve used Edge but going by this blurb about it:
Microsoft Edge can read aloud news, sports stories, and other web pages to you.
I think it’s mainly intended for mainly text-based content - not interactive content like e-learning.
If you want to properly test screen reader accessibility in Evolve you’ll need to use a proper screen reader - the easiest option for Windows is Narrator (as it is built into Window).
JAWS is also a good option but slightly annoying in that in demo mode it forces you to restart your computer every 40 mins or so to continue using it!
NVDA is also an option - and is free - but also seems to be the buggiest of all the screen readers.
On a Mac, VoiceOver is your best (only??) option.
Just to add @Shane , it’s worth taking the time to familiarise yourself with the controls for each reader. Some methods of navigation have specific purposes - for example, using the tab key to move around a page of elearning may seem logical, but it will just jump from interactive element to interactive element. You want to make sure you are navigating in a way that reads everything. You might find these links useful for JAWS and NVDA:
https://www.freedomscientific.com/training/jaws/hotkeys/
Cheers-Sam
oh wow! thank you @Sam_Cook_Evolve_LQA
So, the chances are I am not doing anything wrong in my build, I just do not have the tools to check properly?
@Shane out of curiosity I just downloaded Edge to check out its ‘Read aloud’ functionality and it really does seem like it’s only aimed at reading out the content of text that’s actually visible on screen i.e. that does not need to be revealed as the result of an interaction/click.
I did dig into the settings but it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to allow it to navigate and interact with the page in the way you can with a ‘proper’ screen reader.
Yes, the ‘Read Aloud’ functionality of Edge is definitely not sufficient to test your course’s accessibility
Thank you soooo much for your help @Sam_Cook_Evolve_LQA & @Matt_Leathes. It makes me feel better to know I am not missing something. I checked one of my customer sites who use Narrator which did a much better job than the Edge reader. I will try to get JAWS too. Thank you again!
During my latest testings of a course with NVDA I found that it also depends on the browser you use. My personal fav browser is Chrome, but in our organization a lot of people with handicap seem to use Firefox. Also Evolve displays different outputs in these two browsers, e.g. when using SVG graphics for header images… Accessibility good or bad sometimes seems to be an issue of the browser/screenreader combination I am using, e.g. Chrome skips reading texts aloud while Firefox reads all headlines, body texts and so on.
thank you for your response 