Re: [VuFind-Tech] question about JAWS (Job Access With Speech) software compatibility with Vufind -

[Demian K. <dem...@vi...>]

Unfortunately, we don't have access to a copy of JAWS here for testing, so I can't easily recreate the problem.

We use the WAVE toolbar for testing VuFind's accessibility (far from an ideal solution, but better than nothing), and it is not reporting any issues on the search results screen that seem like an obvious reason for JAWS to skip the results text.

A few things you can try that might help us narrow down the cause of the problem:


1.)    Could you try using JAWS on our public demo?  For example: http://vufind.org/demo/Search/Results?lookfor=test&type=AllFields&submit=Find.  If JAWS works on the demo but not on your site, perhaps the problem is related to a local customization.  If the public site shows the same problem, at least I know that we are looking at the same problem code.

2.)    Could you try temporarily changing your theme to classic or default instead of blueprint?  If JAWS works in one of the older themes but not in the newer one, that will at least give us some points of comparison for debugging.

3.)    Do you know if JAWS offers any tools for web developers to help troubleshoot problems like this?  If we knew more about what JAWS was doing, that might be helpful.

Good luck, and let me know if there's anything more I can do to help - even if you can't solve the problem on your own, letting me know the results of some of the tests I suggest may help me do further research on the issue.  Accessibility is important, and I'm definitely interested in making VuFind usable for everyone - it's just difficult sometimes to address this issue effectively with limited time and resources, so reports like this are a big help.

- Demian

From: Dalia Mendelsson [mailto:da...@sa...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 7:28 AM
To: VuFind Tech Mailinglist
Subject: [VuFind-Tech] question about JAWS (Job Access With Speech) software compatibility with Vufind -

Hi,

At the Hebrew University of  Jerusalem, VuFind was implemented with version 1.3 and tested with JAWS software.*
VuFind seems compatible with JAWS supporting the text-to-speech for almost all the screens except for the results list section which is skipped.

So the question is how to enable the text-to-speech of the results list section.

Please note that the JAWS software works fine with the text-to-speech  in the result list of Google.

Any suggestion how this could be solved?

Thanks,
Dalia


*JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is a computer screen reader program for Microsoft Windows that allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text-to-speech output.


Dalia Mendelsson
IT Projects Manager

The Library Authority
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Frank Sinatra Building, Mt. Scopus
Jerusalem 91905
Tel: +972 2 5880160
Fax: +972 2 5880066
http://lib-authority.huji.ac.il/