[Athen] Accessible Office Export Plug-In That's NOT UIUC

[Sean Keegan]

> While S5 is great way to create a presentation on the web

> it is not really accessible with Jaws as all the keystrokes

> needed to move the presentation forward are defined

> by Jaws to perform dfferent functions.


I think this raises an interesting question as to assistive technology
support  of Web standards.  Is the S5 Web presentation model accessible
using JAWS?  Sure - but it really depends on what version of JAWS you are
using AND what Internet browser.  A presentation with the S5 system could be
accessed with JAWS 7.x and Firefox, but not Internet Explorer (JAWS 8 has
improvements with IE and the S5 system).  Turning off the CSS in the browser
seems to improve the presentation navigation with JAWS tremendously...which
raises a very interesting question as to why does CSS have so much control
over how JAWS functions?!?.

Side note: For using a screen-reader with S5 - to move one screen ahead,
press Alt + Right Arrow.

Here is my issue though: the S5 system is a standards-based implementation
of XHTML, CSS, and Javascript.  I would argue that the developers of such AT
need to recognize that better support of Web standards is a necessity and
the lack of access is not so much a problem of the presentational system
(i.e., S5), but rather poor implementation of the Web feature set by the AT
vendor.

Granted, there is still an issue of limited access by the individual and
that is why I generally advocate the idea of posting multiple formats of the
presentation - let site visitors choose the file-type they like the most.
However, I do believe that better implementations of standards-compliant (or
perhaps standards-supportive) assistive technology is a necessity as we move
forward in implementing new models of communication.


Take care,
Sean


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Saroj Primlani
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 12:30 PM
To: athen at athenpro.org
Subject: Re: [Athen] Athen Digest, Vol 13, Issue 11

While S5 is great way to create a presentation on the web it is not really
accessible with Jaws as all the keystrokes needed to move the presentation
forward are defined by Jaws to perform dfferent functions.  I learnt that
the hard way Saroj