Hi.
I have received this email from a coworker mailing list. I think it must be considered in order to avoid similar problems.
Hi,
I'm working on a new web site. Because of their very strong commitment to accessibility, I have decided to use Drupal as my CMS. When I go to www.drupal.org, though, I hear a ton of seemingly random messages spoken on their home page. I'm told that these messages pop up on the screen as peole post to a chat or something similar. I used the "\" key to cycle through the live regions settings but found that none of the settings actually do anything on this site. I found that I can open links and use the site if I ignore the home page so there is a workaround but it is clearly suboptimal.
On a positive note regarding Orca, though, is that the Drupal web site causes Safari with VoiceOver to crash badly on Macintosh computers so the Orca experience is, while annoying, much better than Apple's solution.
Happy Hacking,
cdh
The mailing list link: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2011-May/msg00432.html
Thank you very much.
Kind regards.
Comments
On a related note
this popped into my inbox this morning:
Lazar, Jonathan , Allen, Aaron , Kleinman, Jason and Malarkey, Chris (2007) 'What Frustrates Screen Reader Users on the Web: A Study of 100 Blind Users', International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 22:3, 247 - 269
Abstract
In previous research, the computer frustrations of student and workplace users have been documented. However, the challenges faced by blind users on the Web have not been previously examined. In this study, 100 blind users, using time diaries, recorded their frustrations using the Web. The top causes of frustration reported were (a) page layout causing confusing screen reader feedback; (b) conflict between screen reader and application; (c) poorly designed/unlabeled forms; (d) no alt text for pictures; and (e) 3-way tie between misleading links, inaccessible PDF, and a screen reader crash. Most of the causes of frustration, such as inappropriate form and graphic labels and confusing page layout, are relatively simple to solve if Webmasters and Web designers focus on this effort. In addition, the more technically challenging frustrations, such as screen reader crashes and conflicts, need to be addressed by the screen reader developers. Blind users in this study were likely to repeatedly attempt to solve a frustration, not give up, and not reboot the computer. In this study, the blind users reported losing, on average, 30.4% of time due to these frustrating situations. Implications for Web developers, screen reader developers, and screen reader users are discussed in this article.
Full text available at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a787987186&fulltext=713...
Thank you
That's an interesting reading.
I will send it to the Orca development team.
Kind regards.
Calm Down & Clear the Cache
I appreciate the feedback
I appreciate the feedback about Drupal.org. I will address the two issues quite briefly.
There really isn't any markup that should be causing Orca to speak content. If this is happening there may be an Orca setting or bug causing this. I haven't used Orca in quite some time.
I am not aware of Drupal.org crashing with VoiceOver and Safari, I just tested now on Snow Leopard.
Accessibility Consultant & Web Developer - Zufelt.ca
@ezufelt on Twitter | LinkedIn profile
Testing with Snow Leopard
I'm not a screen reader user, but it's easy for me to use voice over. I've in browsing the Drupal.org homepage I've had the Safari crash. I've never seen this before, but I don't use it extensively.
I am using snow leopard so not sure what might be the problem.
Skip to main menu doesn't seem to put me where I'm expecting.
This is the error I get:
Process: Safari [69279]
Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
Identifier: com.apple.Safari
Version: 5.0.5 (6533.21.1)
Build Info: WebBrowser-75332101~1
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [101]
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.7
Report Version: 6
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x00007fff7079a328
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
The Develop with Drupal section doesn't read very well as when I'm tabbing through the links I don't get the #'s read to me:
9,964 Modules
1,132 Themes
8,335 Developers
This week
2,564 Code commits
6,576 Issue comments
I haven't seen this before.
--
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