Summer of Access: "How do blind people see the computer?"

[00:00:00]Nicole Letoile: Hmm!

[00:00:01]Nicole Letoile: Let everybody in.

[00:00:12]Nicole Letoile: Hello!

[00:00:15]Nicole Letoile: Welcome, everyone.

[00:00:17]Nicole: Going to approve all have  our AIs. I've just approved like 3 AI note takers. Hello, note takers. Welcome Nicole Letoile: All right, everyone. It  is 6:30. We'll get started right away.

[00:00:30]Welcome to the Summer of Access Webinar  series. Today's session. How do blind people see the computer brought to you by L'Etoile  Education and the Accessibility L&D Community.

[00:00:41]Nicole Letoile: I'll tell you a little bit about our presenter here in a second. Just a  few reminders. We are in a Zoom Meeting, so please stay muted unless you're speaking. Use  the chat or raise hand feature for questions.

[00:00:53]Recordings will be shared in the Accessibility  L&D Community following this presentation, live captions and transcripts are available. I'd love  to introduce our presenter today is Jacob Wood.

[00:01:07]Jacob is a blind learning designer who has several  years of experience with web content accessibility guidelines. In his spare time. He likes to write  design tabletop games and listen to loud music.

[00:01:19]I've had the pleasure of getting to  know Jacob these past few months, and I'm so thrilled that he'd offered to  present. Jacob is just a fantastic person, and we're all so lucky to learn from  you today. So Jacob, take it away.

[00:01:34]Jacob Wood: Thank you. I appreciate it. And  I'm happy to be here. So today we're going to talk about well, exactly what the title  says, how do blind people see the computer?

[00:01:48]the whole concept comes from a common  question that I get often from children.

[00:01:52]But I know that adults have had the same  question. And when they find out that a blind person can actually interact with  technology, they start to wonder, well, how do you actually do that? And I found  that people who even understand conceptually how a blind person might access the  computer or other types of technology, they may not have ever actually  had experience with that or seen a demonstration in action. So that's what  we're here for today. I'm going to kind of demystify a lot of the questions that  you might have around screen readers and using a computer with only a keyboard. And  I'm happy to take any questions. So feel free to drop those in the chat Nicole has offered to  take your questions and ask them as we go along.

[00:02:42]I have turned off the chat on my end, because  screen readers can announce everything that's happening, and I can get a little bit a  little bit noisy sometimes, and it seems like, even though I attempted to turn that off, it might  not have turned off. So we'll see how it goes.

[00:02:59]I can mute to chat anytime it gets  in my way, though, as we go along, so we'll just try to make sure  that it's not getting in our way.

[00:03:13]So I'm going to go ahead and start by just kind of  going over a little bit about the sort of direct answer to that question, how do blind people  see the computer. And it really does depend on a number of factors, most notably of which is what  level of blindness we're talking about, because, like many things, blindness is a spectrum. You can be at the kind of very edge of being legally blind, which is in America  20 over 200 vision with correction.

[00:03:43]which basically means you can  see things kind of only up close or with certain level of visual acuity.

[00:03:53]But you can still use computers with  magnification over certain settings.

[00:03:58]I personally used to use a screen  magnifier at about 400% magnification level. And if you've ever turned on  your magnifier in windows or Mac OS, you've and tried to zoom in on  something really well, really high level you'll know that you tend to not be able to  see a whole lot at once. But being able to see a very large text is better than not being  able to interact with your computer at all.

[00:04:24]So that's 1 way that people with  low vision see the computer, the other main interactive method that I'll be  demonstrating today is called a screen reader.

[00:04:34]These are things like NVDA, which stands  for non-visual desktop access. It's a free program that anybody using windows can download.

[00:04:42]There's also JAWS which stands for  job access with speech. It's one of the oldest screen readers has been  around for more than 40 years, and that one is very similar to NVDA. But  there is a monthly subscription to it.

[00:04:57]And then there are also free screen readers  built into both windows. And Mac. They're called windows, Narrator and Voiceover respectively.

[00:05:06]And then going beyond computers. We have  things like talk back on android devices and voice over on Ios devices. So  there is a lot of different types of assistive technology that  people use in different ways to interact with their computers  and other devices. But because a lot of what we're doing  here today is talking about screen readers and computer use specifically  in the context of things like learning design.

[00:05:37]I'll be demonstrating this using  NVDA on a windows computer and Microsoft Edge. And that's really  important when you're talking about testing to be specific about the technology  that you're using because there can be differences when using different web  browsers, different operating systems different screen readers. All of those  things can interact with each other in ways that one might not expect. So if  something works for NVDA and Edge and Windows. It may not necessarily work  in Chrome in Windows or with Voiceover on a Mac in Safari. So it's often important to  test using different technologies and devices.

[00:06:22]But that's kind of getting more into the weeds  than we really need to go into today. I think.

[00:06:28]Nicole Letoile: Jacob, since I  was waiting for pause. Let's I.

[00:06:32]Jacob Wood: Sure.

[00:06:32]Nicole Letoile: Put into the chat. If we  keep the chat minimum, and people can send me directly the question, not to everyone.  Then it should not distract or clutter the Jacob Wood: Yeah, that'd be great.

[00:06:43]Nicole Letoile: Let's try  to do that. Great thanks.

[00:06:46]Jacob Wood: Great.

[00:06:47]Jacob Wood: So the last thing that I'll say  just kind of briefly to introduce screen reader technology before I show you how I use. It is  Chris Smart, really said it best, he said, that listening to a screen reader is kind  of like looking through a straw when you observe your computer if you were to to  think about just like the smallest pinpoint of information that can come through to you at  once. That's what a screen reader is giving you.

[00:07:15]It can only give you whatever is in focus  at a given time. That's usually a button.

[00:07:21]a paragraph, a single character of text and  it's very difficult to get kind of a layout of the content surrounding that. Which is why  it's important for websites and other digital content to be marked up semantically, meaning  with proper headings and buttons and labels.

[00:07:42]So that we can get a general feel for what a page  might actually look like. The other thing is, space has very little, and I'm sorry I lost the word.

[00:07:59]It's it's difficult to get a sense of space on  with a screen, reader, so when you might look at a web page and see a header at the top, a menu bar  on the left hand side and content on the right.

[00:08:12]I'm only getting one thing at a time. And so in my  mind, it's basically all just a list of content.

[00:08:18]Think about copying and pasting something into a  notepad file and just reading straight down the list. That's sort of how somebody interacts  with the computer who uses a screen, reader, and again we'll go into a little bit more  detail about that in just a little bit.

[00:08:36]I'm going to go ahead and start  sharing my screen soon, and while I'm getting that set up, if anybody  has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

[00:08:47]Nicole Letoile: We don't  have any questions as of yet.

[00:08:50]Jacob Wood: Okay, and give me just  a second here to get this set up.

[00:08:58]Nicole Letoile: Actually, we do  have a question. Sorry? Thank you.

[00:09:03]Jacob Wood: Sure.

[00:09:04]Nicole Letoile: Does a CBT. Have to  have a reader option built into it?

[00:09:10]Or are screen readers compatible with most CPTs.

[00:09:16]so long as it's being viewed  in compatible browsers.

[00:09:20]I asked because I took a CBT. This morning, and  there were no reading option in the training, and the training was very text heavy  like. It was previously a Powerpoint deck that uploaded as a training, and I'm  sorry I don't know what CBTstands for.

[00:09:34]Jacob Wood: Not sure what that means either.

[00:09:38]Nicole Letoile: And this is from  Kim, computer-based training.

[00:09:43]Jacob Wood: Okay, Jacob Wood: typically, no, you  don't have to have a screen, reader built into the training content,  because, as we'll see in just a moment.

[00:09:55]the assistive technology often sits on the user  side. So I'll be demonstrating in NVDA again, non visual desktop access is the  what that stands for and that is, independent of any sort of reader  technology that might be built into a course and more options for this.  Screen reader:Drop down button menu.

[00:10:21]Jacob Wood: Okay? And is  it showing the screen? Now.

[00:10:24]Nicole Letoile: Yes.

[00:10:34]Jacob Wood: So right now you may have first heard  some really fast text. I personally use the screen reader, set to 100% speed, which I know is too  fast for most of you to keep up with. But I'm just going to demonstrate briefly what that  might sound like, and then I'll slow it down.

[00:10:50]Jacob Wood: So right now I'm  at the top left of a page, and the first thing I've noticed on this course  is a skip to content Link, which is perfect.

[00:10:59]That's something that I  might use from time to time, but I'll demonstrate in a little bit why  I might personally not actually use that.

[00:11:09]And so the first thing that I  might do when I come to a page is starting at the top. Just kind  of navigate with my down arrow key through some of the menus to get an  idea of what the layout looks like.

[00:11:24]And we've got calendar courses dashboard kind  of your typical Lms stuff. So I'm going to go ahead. And now that you've heard that 100%  speed and slow this down to something where you might actually be able to use it a  little bit or hear it a little bit better Screen reader: rate, 95 rate, 90 rate, 85 rate,  30 rate rate rate, 30 rate 35 out of list out of region. Same page link, skip to content,  global navigation region visited link dashboard.

[00:11:48]Jacob Wood: Is that a little  bit more intelligible?

[00:11:52]Nicole Letoile: So I can't speak for  the group. It's better. I'll say that Screen reader:: list with 8 items button  account. Break 30, visited link, dashboard.

[00:12:04]Nicole Letoile: Yeah, that was clear. Yeah.

[00:12:07]Jacob Wood: Okay, we'll go with 30%, just so that  we can. Really get an idea of what it's saying.

[00:12:13]One of the other things that you might  have noticed when I was navigating just a second ago was how much information  might be coming at me all at once. So I'm going to go back up to the  top here and just reiterate this Screen reader: out of list out of  region. Same page, link, skip to content.

[00:12:28]Jacob Wood: There's a whole bunch of  information that was thrown at me just there. I went out of a list out of a container  on the page, and I hit the skip to content link Screen reader: global navigation  region visited link dashboard.

[00:12:39]Jacob Wood: I'm in the global navigation region  now, a region of a page or a landmark is something that I can use to quickly skip around. So  I know that this is a navigation region.

[00:12:51]Jacob Wood: There should also be typically  a main content region and a footer region, among others, and I can use in this case the  D key on my keyboard with JAWS. It's the R key to skip between these regions. So I'm just  going to demonstrate that really quick here, and then I'll go back to the top breadcrumbs.

[00:13:09]Screen Reader: Navigation landmark  List with 3 items course visited Link.

[00:13:12]Jacob Wood: So this jumped  me to a breadcrumbs region which I know is a list of links that kind  of tell you where at in the course you are Screen reader: courses,  navigation, menu navigation, landmark list with 17 items. Home visited Link.

[00:13:24]Jacob Wood: That was the courses, navigation, Screen reader: menu link announcements. No  content visited link modules, link discussions.

[00:13:31]Jacob Wood: and it sounds like  this is some more LMS details Screen reader: main landmark,  clickable view, all pages link.

[00:13:37]Jacob Wood: Now I reach the main landmark. This is  typically where all of the content is going to sit Screen reader: toggle button press  published Click to unpublish button assigned to visited Link edit. Jacob Wood: And we have some controls for editing the course because  I'm a course administrator on this one Screen Reader: clarifying focus and scope frame  clickable navigation landmark card, one of one.

[00:13:55]Jacob Wood: This is something that I  would not have necessarily expected is that there's a frame on the page here  with a with an activity. And typically, you wouldn't necessarily see this as  a landmark that you would want to have set by itself, but because it's a frame.  The screen reader detects it that way.

[00:14:15]Screen reader: shifting, mindset frame,  clickable navigation landmark card, one of one.

[00:14:18]Jacob Wood: There are a couple of these Screen reader: module, navigation, navigation, landmark, clickable previous module item visited  link module, 3 outcomes and essential questions.

[00:14:24]Jacob Wood: We have module navigation Screen reader: no next landmark.

[00:14:27]Jacob Wood: and that's the end. So I don't  have a footer landmark in this case. Now, the reason I might navigate by landmark is  because. as you can tell it. Let me skip over a lot of that content without having  to go through every single step at a time.

[00:14:43]and I'll go back up to the top  and show you what it might look like if I were to go through every  step at once. There's a lot here Screen reader: global header, banner,  landmark. Same page, link, skip to content.

[00:14:53]Jacob Wood: which is also, again, why  that skip to content link is so important.

[00:14:56]Screen reader: Global navigation region visited  link dashboard, list with 8 items button account.

[00:15:00]Jacob Wood: This tells me that  there is a list with 8 items Screen reader: visited link dashboard,  current page button courses.

[00:15:07]Jacob Wood: So I know that these  next 8 items are all going to be grouped together. They're semantically similar.

[00:15:12]Screen reader: Link calendar, link, inbox fun, history link comments, button  clickable 10 unread release notes Jacob Wood: that said that it  was a button clickable. So if I were to press the enter key,  I would activate that button.

[00:15:27]The same is true, for  activating any sort of links, but that tells me that this is  some sort of object that should Jacob Wood: to perform an action on the page as  opposed to take me to another page. That's the difference between a button and a link. Buttons  do things and links, take you places unhelp.

[00:15:46]Screen reader: Out of list out  of region list with one item.

[00:15:47]Nicole Letoile: may I? We just had what  you and I were trying to. I think we could be transparent before the call began. We were  trying to figure out why we couldn't see where Jacob was focusing wasn't appearing.  And so we went through some settings, and you might wanna speak to that because it is  confusing to follow along as to where you are.

[00:16:07]Jacob Wood: Oh, sure!

[00:16:07]Nicole Letoile: And then I  do have a follow up question after that from someone else. When you're ready.

[00:16:12]Jacob Wood: Sure.

[00:16:13]Jacob Wood: Yeah, for some reason when  I'm demoing in NVDA it doesn't seem to update the screen. That might be because the  system focus which is what you would get when you use the tab key to navigate. And I'll  I'll go back, maybe, and give this a test.

[00:16:35]it it's not tracking with my screen, reader, so I apologize. If you can't tell  exactly where I am on the page visually.

[00:16:44]I'll try to make sure that I'm  describing as much as possible what I'm hearing and giving you kind of  an overview of where I'm at on the page.

[00:16:53]Nicole Letoile: And that actually reminded  me of when we were testing something and we couldn't. It wasn't working, or we didn't have a  great visual. And you we we talked about. Well, that would give the person an idea of what  you're experiencing, because you're experience Nicole Letoile: the same way we have a question, how can we assign landmarks? Is it  similar to formatting by headings.

[00:17:13]Jacob Wood: So the landmarks are something  that will typically be controlled by your LMS because, that's written in the code, there's  a special roles that you can assign using semantic HTML, meaning like actual HTML tags  that are built in. And there are some that you can assign using aria, which is a way of  adding additional content to an application.

[00:17:41]Using standard authoring tools. I  don't think there's necessarily a way, unless you're aware of something, Nicole, to  create your own landmarks. But we will talk in a little bit about ways that you can work  around that with things like headings to create objects on the page that I can  use to anchor myself as well.

[00:18:01]Nicole Letoile: I'm glad you mentioned it,  because I did respond that certain tools I won't call out any particular authoring tool this  evening does not appropriately label the landmarks which causes additional confusion. Some don't  have them, or they just name them incorrectly.

[00:18:17]Jacob Wood: Okay. Well, let's go  ahead and continue on for a moment.

[00:18:25]Screen reader: Out of list. Button  hide courses, navigation menu.

[00:18:28]Jacob Wood:So there's a button here that lets me  hide the navigation menu that's helpful, for when maybe I don't like, I know I'm  not going to need it anymore, and I can just get it out of the way.  Because I'm not necessarily navigating Jone object at a time, though I'm  personally not going to bother hiding it, because it would be difficult for me  to turn it back on if I did need it.

[00:18:53]Screen reader: Breadcrumbs,  navigation, landmark list with 3 items visited link course link pages,  introduction to Dilemma-based Protocols.

[00:19:01]Jacob Wood: This tells me that  I'm in the introduction to dilemma based protocols page that's part of the course Screen Reader: out of list  link view a student, courses, navigation, menu navigation landmark  list with 17 items visited Link home.

[00:19:13]Jacob Wood: Now there's a lot of  information there. We entered a new landmark and entered a list with  17 items, and this is probably going to be some more navigation links,  I would imagine. Let's find out.

[00:19:24]Screen reader: link announcements.  No content not visible to students, visited link modules, link discussions.

[00:19:31]Jacob Wood: If you'll notice visited link modules.

[00:19:34]Jacob Wood: modules, tells me that it's a  visited link, which means I've been there before.

[00:19:37]Screen reader: Link discussions,  link quizzes, link assignments, link current page pages, link files, visited  link people disabled, not visible to students.

[00:19:49]Jacob Wood: and some of these have some  additional context, such as not visible to students. That's helpful for an administrator  to know that this page is not something that would show up if I were in student view Screen reader:link collaborations disabled, not visible to students link outcomes,  disabled, not visible to students.

[00:20:06]Jacob Wood: So I know that this list  was pretty long. I'm not going to make you sit through all of it because I  wouldn't. What I would be doing if I was trying to take this course is,  I'm going to try to jump to content that's relevant to me. So  let's say that I actually hit this course. And I'm on this page, and I  want to find the content quickly. I can either use that skip to content  link that was at the top of the page.

[00:20:32]So to demonstrate, I'm actually  going to press control plus hold Screen reader: out of list, global header, banner,  landmark, same page, link, skip to content.

[00:20:38]Jacob Wood: And that's going to take me all the  way back up to the top left side of the page, which is the first object and the  document object model, which is a fancy way of saying the way that  the page is read if I use the Tab key Screen reader: global Navigation  region, dashboard visited Link.

[00:20:55]Jacob Wood: Does that change my focus indicator?

[00:20:58]Screen reader: list with 8 items account button.

[00:20:59]Nicole Letoile: I do not see the I  still do not see. Oh, actually yep, no! I just saw you moved. Did you?  Did it say account? Oh, it's moved.

[00:21:10]Screen reader: page, courses, button, dashboard.

[00:21:12]Jacob Wood: Okay. Well, I think that  confirms my earlier suspicion in that.

[00:21:19]NVDA isn't following the system focus. So  there are two different ways that you can interact with the page. There's navigating  through with the tab key, and you'll hear a lot of talk about focus order.  That's when you're just pressing tab to make it through the  content, like I'm doing here.

[00:21:34]Screen reader: Calendar link, inbox link.

[00:21:37]Jacob Wood: If I didn't have a  screen reader, and I was using the keyboard. Only I would have the tab  key to navigate. And that's why that skip to content link is so important. Because  this is a lot to tab through one at a time and without a screen. reader, I don't  have any way to skip past all of that.

[00:21:59]but because I do use a screen reader,  I'm going to pull a trick that I've learned over times. I'm going to  always hit the one key on my keyboard to try to jump to the first heading level one  on the page. That's the top level heading.

[00:22:12]Screen reader: mainland mark, clickable introduction to dilemma based  protocols heading level one.

[00:22:15]Jacob Wood: And I do that because that's  usually also the top of the content area.

[00:22:20]And in this case it looks like it took  me exactly to where I wanted to go, which was at the top of the course  information, or the the document here.

[00:22:31]From here I can navigate down and  find out what else there is to read.

[00:22:36]Screen reader: Heading level 2.

[00:22:36]Screen reader: Annette Robinson  has joined the meeting, Screen Reader: alert, heading level, 2  navigating influence and action through the use of dilemma protocols the framework  of realms of concern and influence which distinguishes between what we care  about clarifying focus and scope.

[00:22:44]Jacob Wood: And I'm not going to make  us all sit through all that text. But right now I'm reading through some of  the paragraph information on this page Screen reader: separator.

[00:22:54]Jacob Wood: Now, my screen reader, just announced  the word separator. This actually took me a while to figure out what this even was. I believe it's  like some kind of decoration or horizontal rule, or something on the page. It's not something that makes a lot of difference to  me as a screen reader user, because I can't understand the visual  markup. If it's if you have access to the underlying code of a course you might  be able to hide that using some aria but otherwise it's just there for me to  kind of bump into and continue past Screen reader: clarifying focus and scope,  frame clickable, clarifying focus and scope.

[00:23:32]Jacob Wood: Now, this says that I  entered a frame. So I'm on some kind of iframe. This might be some embedded content Screen reader: view the card's  prompt and flp the card.

[00:23:41]Jacob Wood: There's a typo  there flp the card. But I believe I've now just entered a flip card activity Screen reaer: grouping, graphic, decorative only.

[00:23:51]And let's talk about alt text for a moment. So  we just heard graphic, decorative. Only some graphics don't have any sort of meeting for  those. You'd want to mark them as decorative.

[00:24:07]You can do that in most course authoring tools, by  either checking a box and an accessibility panel, or by using a pair of double quotes. To tell the  screen reader that the Alt text should be empty, and then it would hide that graphic from  the assistive technology. And you would want to do that because this is just verbal  clutter. To me. Graphic, decorative object really doesn't mean anything to  me. It doesn't tell me semantically what's on the page. It doesn't give any  context to what I'm about to look at so ideally, something like this would be hidden.  But in this case it's either been flagged as decorative, and the technology underpinning it  didn't translate that properly to the screen reader, or somebody actually used the word  decorative image to describe it as decorative, which would also not necessarily be the proper  way to do that. If images do have meaning.

[00:25:08]then adding alternative text is a really great  way. In fact, it's mandatory to meet your web, content accessibility guidelines to describe that image, and particularly the context around that image.

[00:25:23]Nicole Letoile: Jacob, can I ask you to  potentially go to a slower mode? Sorry, just maybe worth 25%. I don't know how  much slower. That is but 25. Thank you.

[00:25:39]Jacob Wood: Yeah, the Consultancy protocol  asks the presenter to articulate a button turn so I'm on this flip card. activity again. And this says that there is a turn button I can press enter to  activate this, and we'll see what happens here.

[00:25:54]Screen reader: Concern versus influence.  Colon. A dilemma may involve broader concerns left paren e dot g dot school  culture student motivation right paren, that feel overwhelming. But the concern  versus influence Colon, a dilemma Jacob Wood: so that set my focus to the top  of the flip card and started reading that to me. Which is good. That means I don't  have to try to guess at what's happening.

[00:26:15]Sometimes when you activate a button it  won't tell the screen reader what's going on, and I have to either guess or start  kind of looking around for it.

[00:26:24]But in this case it worked properly, and I was  able to hear the result of flipping that card over Screen reader: button turn, out of grouping  card, back navigation, landmark, button retry.

[00:26:36]Jacob Wood: And here are just  some additional controls.

[00:26:40]Screen reader: Card one of one, list  with 3 items. Link, visit H. 5p.org to check out more cool content button. Reuse this  content button. Send a question to the author, out of list, out of frame,  shifting mindset separator.

[00:26:52]Jacob Wood: Now I want to talk  really quickly here about headings Screen reader: shifting mindset Jacob Wood: right now and again. You probably  can't tell exactly where my focus is, but I'm on some text that says shifting content. And  this comes just before this next flip bard.

[00:27:10]Screen reader: shifting, mindset frame, clickable, shifting mindset out  of frames up shifting mindset.

[00:27:14]Jacob Wood: Now, ideally, this would be set as  styled as a heading, because then I could navigate by a heading to either bypass this block or to  get to the block again if I needed it. And I'm guessing that somebody actually just increased the  font size and did some fancy graphic work with it.

[00:27:36]because it's it's in a place where you would  expect a heading, and I just happen to know, from looking through this course before  that there are instances where somebody had say increased a font size to make  it visually look like a heading.

[00:27:51]But then they didn't actually style it  semantically as a heading, meaning to me. It just sounds like it's a paragraph. I  actually can test that by selecting this text Screen reader:shifting mindset selected and I have a key on the keyboard. I press the  NVDA key plus the F for formatting Screen reader: annotate current  location. Colon bottom dash. left accessibility demonstration window, 18  pt. White on very dark gray align center.

[00:28:19]Jacob Wood: It just spit out a bunch  of information about the formatting, and it did say that it was 18 point and centered  which is not something that you would expect for paragraphs of text. So again, my hunch that  this is probably intended to be a heading.

[00:28:39]I think, is confirmed here, but  because it's not styled as a heading it again. I don't have any way to to use this  to my advantage when I'm navigating the course.

[00:28:50]It also doesn't tell me structurally  where I am in the course and I'll talk a little bit more about that  on another slide here, coming up Screen reader: separator, shifting,  mindset, unselected, shifting, mindset frame, clickable, shifting minds  to view the cards prompt and flp the card.

[00:29:06]Jacob Wood: Not going to go through all  of these different controls again. I'm just going to quickly skim the page  because I don't personally remember exactly everything that's on it. We'll find out  if there's anything else worth reviewing here.

[00:29:18]Screen reader: managing the emotional  and practical aspects. Heading level 3.

[00:29:21]Jacob Wood: Okay. So I just pressed  my H key to jump to the next heading, and I got to a heading level 3. That helped  me bypass all of the other flip cards.

[00:29:34]Screen reader: Separator.

[00:29:35]Screen reader: When a presenter shares a dilemma,  emotions often stem from feeling overwhelmed, emotional versus practic connecting realms  of concern and influence, separator frame, clickable link, photo, image of center  for leadership and educational equity.

[00:29:45]Cecilia Fernandez has left out of frame separate frame, clickable link photo image of  center for leadership and education.

[00:29:50]Jacob Wood: Here is an example of an  image that does have some alt text Screen reader: concern versus influence,  Colon, a dilemma link connecting realms of Link photo, image of center for  leadership and educational equity.

[00:30:00]Jacob Wood: although it says photo and  image, which is a little bit redundant Screen reader:link connecting realms of concern  and influence, button copy link, button play, link watch on Youtube out of frame link  transcript links to an external site.

[00:30:12]The connection lies in the way the consultancy  protocol before diving into the cont list with 3 items. One. Think of a comp. 2. How  might focusing on your realm of influence?

[00:30:18]Jacob:I'm just gonna kind of skim  through this real quick here?

[00:30:21]How might using dilemma protocols out  of list visited link, return to modules, module, navigation, navigation, landmark,  clickable, visited link previous module item.

[00:30:28]Jacob Wood: Okay, and I'm in right now  at the end of the content in this module, and I've reached some links  to go back and forth to the next slide. I've got a couple of different  slides already queued up to demonstrate those.

[00:30:41]So I'm actually going to use the control  and tab key to tab to the next browser.

[00:30:48]Screen reader: Tab topic. Colon. What is a holding environment document heading level  one? What is a holding environment?

[00:30:55]Jacob Wood: And now I'm at another module called what is a holding environment, and  it set me automatically to heading one, because that's where I left off the last time  that I was on this page. One of the things that's the screen reader is really good at doing  is remembering where you left a page.

[00:31:17]So its focus kind of remains, and that  helps with multitasking. If I'm bouncing back and forth between 2 different  windows, I don't want to have to find where where I left my cursor  the last time I was there.

[00:31:34]So that's something that  I kind of take for granted sometimes. But in this case it was really helpful.

[00:31:41]Screen reader: Button view, split  screen button expand threads.

[00:31:45]Jacob Wood: Now it sounds like this. Particular  module is embedded in a discussion forum, because I have buttons for viewing threads.

[00:31:54]Screen reader: filter by combo box  collapsed, editable opens list all.

[00:31:58]Jacob Wood: A combo box is a drop  down menu. If I were to activate this Screen reader: mainland mark, split screen view content region filtered by combo  box. All collapsed, opens. List Jacob Wood: a lot of details.

[00:32:09]Screen reader: List view grouping all one of 2.

[00:32:11]Jacob Wood: But it gives me a list of things  to fill. I'm just going to press my escape key, to to close that combo box without  activating anything or selecting anything.

[00:32:23]Now, if you heard that beeping sound?

[00:32:26]It's a really good time to talk about the two  different modes that most screen readers have.

[00:32:32]What I'm in right now is called browse  mode. It means I can kind of move around the page the way that you've  been hearing me so far by pressing certain keys to jump between headings  or landmarks or to scan blocks of text.

[00:32:53]The other type of navigation option is called  focus mode, and that lets you interact with form elements, such as a name, input  box and email address, input box, you'll hear with NVDA at least, and the sound  effects are different for every browser or for every screen, reader. But I can switch to  focus mode by pressing NVDA plus spacebar.

[00:33:19]And you get that kind of weird  noise while I'm in focus mode. Those kind of hotkeys that I was using before to  navigate one block at a time, or to navigate by heading. They don't work,  so if I press my down arrow Screen reader: all one of 2.

[00:33:36]Jacob Wood: I'm only going to be logged  on to the control that I'm currently on Screen reader: all one of 2  unread, not selected 2 of 2 Jacob Wood: any way to escape  that short of using the tab Screen reader: suggestion available.  Main landmark, split screen view, content region search entries or author edit,  search entries or author blank has autocomplete.

[00:33:56]Jacob Wood: And now that I'm on an edit box, I can  actually type because I'm in focus mode. Still.

[00:34:02]Screen reader: no results found for  type. Hello, world suggestion available, main landmark, split screen view, content, region, search entries or author, clear search,  edit type. Hello, world has autocomplete.

[00:34:16]Jacob Wood: So I just got a whole bunch  of information thrown at me. Mostly what I was interested in there is  whether there was any sort of search results, and there was not when I searched  for Hello! World! If I were to be back in browse mode and activate the search box, though I'm  going to press again in NVDA plus the spacebar Screen reader: search entries or author edit  submenu has autocomplete type. Hello, world.

[00:34:44]Jacob Wood: Now, if I were to start  typing because I'm not in focus mode, even though my focus is set to the search box.  It's not going to work if I type H. For Hello, world, it's going to jump me to the next heading.

[00:34:55]Screen reader: No next heading Jacob Wood: except there is no  next heading, so it is nothing Screen reader: button. Clear search,  sort by button. Clear search, a search, enter topic, colon, what is a hold?  Sort by discussion topic. colon, what is a holding environment? Heading level 2.

[00:35:10]Jacob Wood: So I just press my H key. Now that I'm outside of that search box to jump  to the discussion topic, heading.

[00:35:19]Screen reader: heading,  level, 2 holding environments.

[00:35:22]Jacob Wood: And we've got  two level 2 headings here, back to back. We've got one  that's at the title of the course.

[00:35:29]Screen reader: heading Level, 2 discussion  topic, colon. What is a holding environment?

[00:35:32]Jacob Wood: And then the next one,  which sort of introduces the course Screen reader: heading level,  2 holding environments.

[00:35:38]Jacob Wood: Now, this is a probably one of those  things that's not best practice. It. Technically, it doesn't hurt anything to have two level, 2 headings next to one another. But they're  not really serving each other either.

[00:35:51]that there are ways again to navigate just  by heading, or to bring up a list of elements and show just the headings on a page, and  this can get a little bit confusing to see two bits of information back to back  that are are supposed to kind of have additional content underneath them. So a  heading should have paragraphs of text, and possibly some nested headings at  lower levels. with with nothing in between. It's just more clutter to my  ears, they both say heading level, 2.

[00:36:28]Screen reader:: Begin by defining,  holding environments supportive and safe spaces where individuals  and read these key excerpts from acket separator flip through the  scenarios and respond in the forum.

[00:36:36]Jacob Wood: So again, I'm just sort of Quickly  browsing through some of the content here Nicole Letoile: just call out the  question around. This course does not look the the way it is with the  dark. You have dark mode setting on your mentioned that about the this is  not the correct contrast. It's just the.

[00:36:57]Jacob Wood: Oh, yeah.

[00:36:58]Nicole Letoile: That we tried to.

[00:36:59]Jacob Wood: That's a great call. Yeah.

[00:37:01]Nicole Letoile: And then, if you would  scroll down a little bit with your mouse, or however you want to do that, I  think we could follow along. You were in the scenarios. Now that you  read more about these environments.

[00:37:11]Jacob Wood: can you see a little bit more.

[00:37:12]Nicole: Yeah, we can see  the scenarios now. Correct.

[00:37:15]Screen Reader: Flip through the prompts  on the cards below. Select grouping prompt one. Colon. Think back over meetings you've  attended in the past year. Select one where you felt particularly safe to do your best  work in a collaborative setting button turn Jacob Wood: so I wanted to highlight this  particular activity because there's some flip cards here. And the request is  that you read through one of these 3 different flip cards and then respond to  one of the prompts in the discussion form.

[00:37:46]I don't want to take all of the time to  go through every one of these. But I'll show you just briefly why this sort of  thing is very challenging for a screen reader to do without just a lot of extra effort.

[00:37:57]If you remember, back to when  I was saying using a screen, reader is like looking at  the website through a straw.

[00:38:06]Right. Now, all I can tell what's  beneath my screen reader, is flip card Screen reader: grouping card  front, grouping button turn.

[00:38:13]Jacob Wood: And I can turn this card Screen reader: option, colon. What did the  facilitator do to create a safe environment?

[00:38:19]Option, a colon? What did the option?  B. Colon? What did you button turn?

[00:38:22]Jacob Wood: And there were 2 questions  here that I potentially could answer.

[00:38:26]I can continue to navigate and go to the next Screen reader: grouping card back,  navigation landmark button. Next card, 2, of 3 card, 2, of 3. Grouping  prompt. 2. Colon. Think back to a group you worked productive because of the  facilitator. Button turn, option a colon.

[00:38:40]Jacob: so I know that I have some cards here that I'm supposed to respond to in the comments.  I'm supposed to just pick one of these.

[00:38:52]Jacob Wood: So let's navigate down and find  the reply button to start a new comment.

[00:38:58]Screen reader: Button turn  out of grouping navigation next card, 2 of list with 3 button reuse buttons, and a list. separator. These excerpts highlight  the revisited link reach out and reply.

[00:39:05]Jacob Wood: here's the reply button Screen reader: text area press, alt, dash 0  for help. Section multi-line, editable blank.

[00:39:13]Jacob Wood: And if you heard the kind of  weird noise again that was at the screen, reader, automatically switching into focus  mode when it encountered this text area.

[00:39:26]So I now have the edit box  and I'm ready to start typing.

[00:39:32]Screen reader: Hello, world.

[00:39:37]Jacob Wood: Now, the challenge here,  with this particular type of activity.

[00:39:43]I'm in this text box, and I don't  remember what was on that flip card.

[00:39:49]Now, if I was a mouse user I could just  click on the flipcard go up above and kind of toggle between those things very  quickly. But as a keyboard user. I can't do that.

[00:40:02]I don't have an easy way to get back  to that content without exiting the text area. So I have to press in NVDA  +, space to go back into browse mode.

[00:40:14]and then I'm going to try finding that content  again by navigating to the previous heading.

[00:40:21]We'll see now you're watching me test this live  here because I haven't scripted any of this, so we'll find out what exactly we have to do  to get to this this flipcard activity again, Screen reader: holding  environments, heading level 2 Jacob Wood: Nope, that skipped me all  the way back up to the top of the course, and I know I don't want that. I'm going to  press the B key to jump to the nearest button, because I know those flip cards used buttons Screen reader:holding environments, frame  clickable card, 2, a 3 grouping turn button.

[00:40:47]Jacob Wood: And that worked okay. So with a shift  plus H to go backward to the top heading and then pressing the B key again, I was able to get to  the flip cards and just a couple of keystrokes.

[00:41:01]Screen reader: Option. B. colon, what  actions did you option a colon. What actions did the facilitator take  to make the group effective?

[00:41:05]Jacob Wood: But now I have to  try to read this again one step at a time and then choose one of these to respond Screen reader: option. B.  Colon, what actions did you, if you were the facilitator,  take to make the group effective?

[00:41:17]Jacob Wood: And then, after  I've decided. Maybe I want to respond to option B Screen reader: option B Colon copy to  clip, get back down to that edit box.

[00:41:28]Jacob Wood: So for me, I actually  have a tool that I can use to do that I press the E key on my keyboard  to jump to the nearest edit box.

[00:41:35]Screen reader: Clickable rich text  area press alt plus F8 for rich content editor shortcuts frame rich text  area press, alt, dash 0 for help section.

[00:41:43]Jacob Wood: But because I'm in browse mode.  I have to manually switch now to focus mode Jacob Wood: by pressing NVDA + spacebar.  And now I can start typing and responding to that question. But that took me a lot of steps, and if I were to go through and forget  what that text was again. I have to go back You might have heard me copy that text, and I  know I kind of did that very quickly. That's because for me, that's the best way  to sort of capture that information, so I can respond. Refer to it later. And I  might actually paste it into this text box and we'll see it didn't  sound like it did anything.

[00:42:27]Screen reader: Option B.  Colon. What actions did you, if you were the facilitator,  take to make the group?

[00:42:29]Jacob Wood:So when I pasted that it did  paste the content, but it didn't announce it to my screen reader. For some reason I had to press the up arrow on my keyboard to get it, to reread that text. Now that I  finally have selected the content and the pasted it into my text box, I can more  easily go back and refer to it. But again, that took a lot more steps than your mouse  user might have to take, and it can get kind of overwhelming. And there's a lot of cognitive  load involved with an activity like this.

[00:43:08]So typically, it's easier to separate the text and rather than embed it all in these flip cards when  you're going to have something to respond to, just because it means that there are fewer  controls for me to go back and forth in between.

[00:43:24]Before I actually have to make the  decision about which one to copy Are there any questions so far, or  should we skip to the next activity?

[00:43:36]Nicole Letoile: Let's open  it up and see if there are questions. There's there's been a couple  of things, and I've been responding to.

[00:43:45]Did you already talk about? Did you  just say that? How to jump to like after a media player to have a heading?  Was that what you were getting to like.

[00:43:52]Jacob Wood: I haven't, but that's a really  good like I sort of briefly touched on that. But is there? Was there something like  that in one piece. If I don't get through.

[00:44:06]Nicole Letoile: It, too. Was you.

[00:44:07]Jacob Wood: Yeah.

[00:44:07]Nicole Letoile: Describing it to me  was super helpful, and it might help.

[00:44:10]Jacob Wood: Okay, yeah. So was it 2.4.1  bypass blocks is the WCAG success criteria.

[00:44:21]What a lot of people think of who  understand a bit about WCAG or the web content accessibility guidelines is that  one of the requirements is a bypass blocks, and that's where the skip to content  link at the top of these courses often comes in. I'll go back to it real quick  here, by pressing control, plus home Screen reader: out of section, out  of frame, out of region, clickable, global header, banner, landmark,  skip to content. Same page link.

[00:44:45]Jacob Wood: Now, if I were to  press the skip to content link Screen reader: mainland  mark, clickable, clickable, split screen view, content region. What  is a holding environment? Heading level, one view, split screen button, expand threads,  button assigned to button filter by filter, by combo box, collapsed. Editable  opens list, all search entries or, Jacob Wood: okay, I'm going to stop my  reading there. It started reading too much, but it set my focus to the  top of this learning module Screen reader: mute annotate scroll up.

[00:45:12]Jacob Wood: That's that's what most people  think of when they think of complying with the bypass blocks. Success criteria. But  it's not the only thing that matters. So being able to bypass blocks  of controls or text or content in a a number of different ways is really helpful.  Let's take your standard kind of video player.

[00:45:37]Every video player is comprised of not just  the video window which is usually in a frame, but also a whole bunch of buttons that are  controlled. So you have your play pause, stop close captions, settings, volume controls and any number of other things that  might be embedded in that video player.

[00:45:57]Every single one of those buttons requires  me to press the tab key a separate time, or to press the down arrow a second  time to get to the next button.

[00:46:07]Let's say you have 7 players in that video  control. And I've just played the video and I'm done with it for me to get to the next paragraph  of text because I can't just glance downward and continue reading. I have to navigate  through every single button individually, and that can get overwhelming.  And it's just tedious.

[00:46:27]But if you have headings or links, or something  that's consistently located. After that video.

[00:46:36]then I can use my H. Key to navigate by  heading or my K Key to navigate by link in order to skip all of those extra  buttons to get past them really quickly.

[00:46:48]So it's best practice, in my opinion, to  start your next section of text in any sort of learning module with a heading,  if it comes after any sort of control.

[00:46:59]So that could be videos, it could be  these flip cards that we saw earlier.

[00:47:04]It can be any sort of activity.  Multiple choice quizzes whatever.

[00:47:12]Having a heading with the next block of content  lets me skip around really quickly and easily, in a way that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

[00:47:23]Nicole Letoile: Such a fantastic tip. That alone is just. I'm going go  through all my courses today.

[00:47:30]We do have a question from Deborah. Do you  have a feature or learning device that you think is worth highlighting  as a do rather than a don't.

[00:47:40]Jacob Wood: Hmm. Well, I think that  semantic markup talking about headings and being able to bypass blocks. That's  a really great do because that's one that we don't commonly see. And, in fact, on  that previous tab where I was showing that text that looked like it was formatted as a heading. But it wasn't  actually styled as a heading.

[00:48:03]It's a really great example of where you  can add headings to be able to skip past content when it's not necessarily relevant in all cases to the user, other than that one.

[00:48:19]Let's see.

[00:48:26]There's so much really great like,  avoid doing this, or what's a good.

[00:48:35]Maybe, if you don't mind, I'm going  to think on that and come back to it. Because I'm sure we'll spot some  other best practices as we go along.

[00:48:49]Nicole Letoile: Just have a comment from Lindsay.  Appreciate the insight on header use. I've been fighting for better heading use with my team  and love the added user experience points.

[00:49:00]Jacob Wood: Haha. That's awesome.

[00:49:04]Why don't I go ahead then? If there  are no other questions right now, and skip over to the next tab that I had open again. I'm going to use control plus tab.  That's pretty universal in most browsers.

[00:49:17]Screen reader: Topic. Colon, clarifying and  probing questions. Document heading level, one clarifying and probing questions Jacob Wood: again, I've already set my focus here to heading level one  clarifying and probing questions.

[00:49:29]Screen reader: Button view, split  screen button, collapse, threads.

[00:49:32]Jacob Wood: and this is another one  of those those kind of modules that's embedded in a discussion post. So in order to  get past these buttons, I'm actually going to press my H. Key and see if that jumps me to  a heading and bypasses this block of buttons.

[00:49:49]Screen reader: Discussion, topic, Colon  clarifying and probing questions, heading level 2, Jacob Wood: and it seems to have done that. So  that's a really great use case here. Actually, in real time, we're saying how useful  it is to be able to bypass all those buttons. I'll just quickly go back and count them.

[00:50:04]Screen reader: clarifying and  probing questions. Heading.

[00:50:08]Button view, split screen button, collapse,  thread, button assigned to filter by combo box, collapsed, editable of search entries or author,  edit, search entries, or auth sort by combo box collapsed editable toggle, button pressed,  published heading level. 2 discussion topic Colon.

[00:50:18]There were 10 buttons in there that I  would have to skip through every single time if this next block of text was not a heading.

[00:50:28]So if that doesn't make you want  to use headings all of the time Screen reader: alert, heading level 2. Let's start with questioning in this section  you will engage with the question, continuum, sorting at heading level. 3. What are  clarifying questions? Link clarifying questions, links to an external site. Heading level?  3. What are probing questions? Link, probe, heading. Level? 3. What are link clarifying  questions? Links to an external site are used to Jacob Wood: another good best practice  is letting the user know when a link opens an external site that just lets me  know that it's taking me away from the module. And it's going to take me to some  3rd party and you can easily do that by I think most authoring tools. Let you give  a descriptive text to your links. If not.

[00:51:15]it might require some HTML editing Screen reader: heading level 3. What our  pro carry wells has left the meeting alert, heading, link, probing questions, links to an  external site on the heading level. 2 question continuum sorting activity practice by sorting  various question types, such as clarifying, probing and suggestive blank question, continuum  sorting activity frame clickable button.

[00:51:31]Jacob Wood: Now, I want to actually highlight  another thing that's really important here in terms of using interactive content.  That's embedded in this case in an iframe.

[00:51:45]So let's talk through this for a moment, Screen reader: out of frame, practice by sorting various question types,  such as clarifying, probing, and suggestive Jacob Wood: So we have this instruction  to practice by sorting questions. I'm going to continue down so  I can get to the activity Screen reader: blank, question, continuum  sorting activity frame clickable button.

[00:52:05]Jacob Wood: Now, this says that there is  a frame and a button that's clickable, but it didn't really tell me  what that button was application.

[00:52:14]This says just the word application,  and we'll come back to that in a moment.

[00:52:17]Screen reader: Button check the answers.  The responses will be marked as correct, incorrect or unanswered.

[00:52:22]Jacob Wood: There's a really good label on  that button. It gives me not just the check, the answers button, but it also  tells me what to expect after I activate that button. So that's another  really great best practice giving not too much feedback because  it can become verbose at times, but letting somebody know what's going to  happen before they activate a button. If it's not clear just from the button's  label, is a really good best practice.

[00:52:46]Screen reader: list with 4 items. Link visit  H5p.org to check out more cool content, button, reuse this content, button,  view the embed code for this content.

[00:52:54]Jacob Wood: Now. Nicole, were you  able to to visually see my screen there? And what happened with the  application that I skipped over.

[00:53:04]Nicole Letoile: I was reading  something in the chat.

[00:53:06]Jacob Wood: Oh, okay.

[00:53:08]Nicole Letoile: Making sure that I answered it.

[00:53:10]I I don't know. Did anyone want  to say if they saw it or not, or.

[00:53:17]Jarell Fox: I don't see the application.  So all this is like a blank screen, and then right below it says,  post a response in the form, and then question continue on. So  there's like, almost like a blankness.

[00:53:30]Screen reader: Https, Colon app available install.

[00:53:34]Nicole Letoile: I don't think it loaded Jacob Wood: Yeah, okay. This is another one  of those weird issues. I guess you might have noticed, though, that I was told that there  was going to be a sort of a sorting activity.

[00:53:48]But when I was just arrowing  through it nothing loaded, and nothing announced itself as an activity to me.

[00:53:55]So if I didn't know a couple of advanced screen reader tips that I'll show  you in just a second here.

[00:54:01]I wouldn't even know how to get to the sorting  activity period, I wouldn't be able to access it.

[00:54:07]That's partly because this activity from  H5P. And it was embedded via an iframe.

[00:54:14]And of course it's already  using a bunch of different probably frames and different types of content.

[00:54:22]I don't want to go, too into  the weeds from what that means, from a technical perspective. But basically  it's like having a cutout and like a little window cut out on a sheet of paper and not  being able to see what's inside that cutout.

[00:54:36]Sceen reader: Button. Reuse this  content. Link visit H5p.org to check out of list button. Check the  answers, the responses will be marked.

[00:54:42]Jacob Wood: So, I'm just kind of going  backward here. I want to get to where it said Application, because I know that  that's what I'm actually looking for Screen reader: application.

[00:54:53]Jacob Wood: So this doesn't tell  me anything. But I personally know that if I were to activate this by pressing  the enter key. It's going to do something.

[00:55:02]Screen reader: Application,  application. Grabbable 1 of 9. Have you thought about trying  9 line in this situation button Jacob Wood: so that actually loaded  the application for my screen reader, I don't know if you can see it visually or not.

[00:55:15]Nicole Letoile: We cannot  see it visually. Actually, I was closing my eyes, trying to  experience it without too like we.

[00:55:20]So we can't see it's a we have a we  have a blank screen to us visually.

[00:55:25]Jacob Wood: Okay? Interesting. Well, just imagine, then, what this might might be like. There's a  sorting activity on presumably on the screen.

[00:55:36]Screen reader:Grabable. 2 of 9. What is the best  slash? Worst thing that could happen, button?

[00:55:41]Jacob Wood: And what I'm hearing  here is grabbable. 2 of 9, and then something about some  text, and then that it's a button Screen reader: Grabbable? 3 of 9. How  much time did 6. Line take grabbable?

[00:55:53]4 of 9? Have you explored 4  line as a potential solution.

[00:55:56]Jacob Wood: Now nothing in the instructions  anywhere told me how I'm supposed to grab these things and move them around. Typically,  this would be a drag and drop kind of activity.

[00:56:07]But without a mouse I can't just  click and drag on something.

[00:56:12]Many drag and drop games simply are not  screen reader accessible. There's no way to interact with them. And there is a  way to interact with this one. I know, because it says that these blocks are grabbable.

[00:56:25]But if I didn't just personally  know the common way that that's done I wouldn't have any way again to  even attempt at this sorting activity for me, what I know is that  I can switch to focus mode Screen reader: grabbable. 4 of 9.

[00:56:41]Jacob Wood: No, I was in focus mode, apparently and press the space bar  to lift something that's grabbable.

[00:56:46]Screen reader: Space drop  zone, 3 of 3 suggestive button.

[00:56:50]Jacob Wood: And this tells  me that there's a drop zone Screen reader: no drop zone button.  Drop zone, 3 of 3 suggestive button.

[00:56:57]Jacob Wood: But if you are unable to follow  along with what's actually happening here, I don't blame you, because neither can I?  I've other than that. I picked something up, and I'm in some kind of drop zone to drop it.

[00:57:09]I don't know where I'm actually sorting this  piece of content into no drop zone, button.

[00:57:14]Screen reader: drop zone, 3 of  3, and why? There's only 3 of 3.

[00:57:17]Jacob Wood: I don't know. I'm going  to need to use my other arrow keys, because right now I'm only using up and down.

[00:57:22]Screen reader: No drop zone button. Drop  zone. 3 of 3 suggest no drop zone button.

[00:57:25]Jacob Wood: I'm using my left and right arrows, but that doesn't seem to be  changing anything, either.

[00:57:30]Screen reader: Drop zone. 3 of  3 suggest no drop zone button Jacob Wood: I honestly have no idea how  I'm going to drop this anywhere but Zone 3.

[00:57:38]Screen reader: Drop zone,  3 of 3 suggestive button.

[00:57:41]Jacob Wood: So I'm going to press  the spacebar to try to drop it.

[00:57:44]Screen reader: Space Grabbable  4 of 9. Have you explored 4 line as a potential solution placed in  drop zone suggestive dot button?

[00:57:49]Jacob Wood: And it said that it was  placed in a drop zone. But again, I don't know what that really means.  At this point as a screen reader user, I'm probably just going to  give up on this activity.

[00:58:01]But that comes to another issue with this type of activity. And let me just quickly skip to the  bottom of the frame here to show you what that is to skip to the bottom. I'm going to  press control plus end on my keyboard Screen reader: button unavailable, suggestive, button, unavailable drop zone, 3 of  3, button unavailable, suggestive.

[00:58:21]Jacob Wood: So at the very bottom  of this content of this application, it just says button unavailable, suggestive That doesn't really tell me anything, and it's  also not a close button. So I don't know how I'm going to get out of this application.  I'm trapped. My keyboard is trapped.

[00:58:40]Now I'm going to do some exploring here,  and we'll see if there's another way out.

[00:58:44]I'm going to press control, plus home, to skip  back to the top, because sometimes that close button will be hidden above the content, even  though typically you travel through content from top to bottom and the close button.  It's helpful to have it at the bottom.

[00:58:59]Screen reader: Button Grabbable,  one of 9 button grabbable one of 9.

[00:59:02]Jacob Wood: If I go to the  top using control plus home, though I just get to these grabable buttons.  There's no close button anywhere here.

[00:59:11]So one other strategy that I'm going  to try is pressing the escape key, because that will sometimes close a modal.

[00:59:21]Screen reader: grab a 1.

[00:59:21]Jacob Wood: But even the escape key isn't  getting me out of it. That's because this isn't technically a modal. It's not a  pop up or a light box. It's a frame.

[00:59:30]I've sort of gone through that  window on the that's been cut out in the sheet of paper. And  now I don't have any way back.

[00:59:39]This would be a critical failure in  WCAG, because my keyboard is trapped, and if I didn't know any other  way out I'd be stuck here.

[00:59:50]I do personally know that there's one way  out, and that's by using shift plus tab to change the focus order of the system carrot,  and we'll see if that gets me out of it.

[01:00:01]Screen reader:: Blank button,  fullscreen, full screen tooltip application button, check the answers, Jacob Wood: and it did. I was able to  exit that iframe using shift plus tab, but not everybody who uses a  screen reader knows how to do that.

[01:00:18]It's it's really not a common strategy, because, it's not very intuitive. So if you are  designing a course and embedding it or and and using these types of activities  in your LMS, it's very important to test them with a screen reader, and see if your screen  reader gets trapped in those boxes. Otherwise.

[01:00:43]I mean if they if your screen  reader does get trapped then you need to rethink the tools that you're using.

[01:00:50]Nicole Letoile: I think we're at  the hour just to pass the hour.

[01:00:53]Jacob Wood: Yeah.

[01:00:54]Nicole Letoile: And that was a good place  to end. I feel like we could then follow up Jacob Wood: Yeah.

[01:00:59]Nicole Letoile: with a course that is  working perfectly. A follow up session. But I'll just open the floor really quickly and  see if there's any last minute questions, otherwise we will let you off the  hook here. That was a fantastic Screen reader: Arlene Johnson  has left the meeting alert.

[01:01:15]Nicole Letoile: Bye, everyone  alright fantastic demonstration.

[01:01:18]Thank you so much, Jacob. Thank you. Everyone.

[01:01:19]Jacob Wood: For now.

[01:01:20]Nicole Letoile: Getting a lot of appreciations in  the chat so enlightening. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole and Jacob, I really appreciate  the presentation. Thank you. Thanks.

[01:01:28]Thank you so much. Such great  information. Amazing. Thank you.

[01:01:30]Jacob Wood: You're welcome, everybody. I'm  sorry I took the whole hour and didn't give you a lot of room for questions. But I can  talk about this stuff all day, I guess.

[01:01:38]Nicole Letoile: Yeah, so we'll follow up.  We'll get the recording posted in the L&D accessibility. Yeah, Lindsay  said she could stay another hour.

[01:01:46]Jacob Wood: I'm happy to stick around and  answer some questions if people have any.