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I've been considering evaluating the accessibility of my sites and I would like to see the impact of the changes I make with WAI-ARIA. Can I do this with a scre

I've been considering evaluating the accessibility of my sites and I would like to see the impact of the changes I make with WAI-ARIA. Can I do this with a screen reader and are there FOSS or built-in screen readers you can recommend I test with?

bambataa 8y ago
Not the OP but you can do a lot with the following: - view your site in lynx - try and navigate around it with only your keyboard - try navigating around it using your OS' screen reader
darekkay 8y ago
There are free and built-in screen readers: NVDA[0] (Windows), VoiceOver[1] (Apple) and Orca[2] (Linux). I've been only working with NVDA so far. I highly recommend this NVDA Cheatsheet [3] to get a quick overview. It's also important to test NVDA with Firefox, as it has a better compatibility and thus it is the more common setup for users relying on a screen reader. Look into the difference between "Browse Mode" and "Focus Mode" (briefly explained in the cheatsheet) and how to switch between them. In the Focus Mode you can just tab through all of your focusable elements and check if the announced texts are understandable and no information is missing. In Browse Mode you go through all of the non-focusable content, and again, check if the output is clear and no (implicit) information is missing. This applies especially to all custom components which may announce gibberish if not handled correctly. Finally, you can look into my slides and examples for my "Accessible Web" talk [4]. [0] https://www.nvaccess.org/ https://www.nvaccess.org/ [1] https://www.apple.com/de/accessibility/mac/vision/ https://www.apple.com/de/accessibility/mac/vision/ [2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca [3] https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/nvda-keyboard-shortcuts https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/nvda-keyboard-shor... [4] https://darekkay.github.io/presentations/ https://darekkay.github.io/presentations/
- vanadium 8y ago
  Accessibility is one place where you'll invariably be forced to pay at some point because the 800lb gorilla of screenreaders (JAWS) is also what's used most often in both home and in most corporate environments. https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/ https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/
kakarot 8y ago
Also worth mentioning that Chrome has a built-in stripped-down screen reader in the developer tools which will display and allow you to navigate through your elements. It's worked well enough for me.

bambataa 8y ago

Not the OP but you can do a lot with the following: - view your site in lynx - try and navigate around it with only your keyboard - try navigating around it using your OS' screen reader

darekkay 8y ago

There are free and built-in screen readers: NVDA[0] (Windows), VoiceOver[1] (Apple) and Orca[2] (Linux). I've been only working with NVDA so far. I highly recommend this NVDA Cheatsheet [3] to get a quick overview. It's also important to test NVDA with Firefox, as it has a better compatibility and thus it is the more common setup for users relying on a screen reader. Look into the difference between "Browse Mode" and "Focus Mode" (briefly explained in the cheatsheet) and how to switch between them. In the Focus Mode you can just tab through all of your focusable elements and check if the announced texts are understandable and no information is missing. In Browse Mode you go through all of the non-focusable content, and again, check if the output is clear and no (implicit) information is missing. This applies especially to all custom components which may announce gibberish if not handled correctly. Finally, you can look into my slides and examples for my "Accessible Web" talk [4]. [0] https://www.nvaccess.org/ https://www.nvaccess.org/ [1] https://www.apple.com/de/accessibility/mac/vision/ https://www.apple.com/de/accessibility/mac/vision/ [2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca [3] https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/nvda-keyboard-shortcuts https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/nvda-keyboard-shor... [4] https://darekkay.github.io/presentations/ https://darekkay.github.io/presentations/

vanadium 8y ago
Accessibility is one place where you'll invariably be forced to pay at some point because the 800lb gorilla of screenreaders (JAWS) is also what's used most often in both home and in most corporate environments. https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/ https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/

kakarot 8y ago

Also worth mentioning that Chrome has a built-in stripped-down screen reader in the developer tools which will display and allow you to navigate through your elements. It's worked well enough for me.