[Athen] ALEKS testing with screen reader user

[Ron Stewart]

Morning, wondering if you would also consider testing with NVDA?

 

Ron Stewart

 

From: athen-list-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu
[mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Karen
Sorensen
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 2:20 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: [Athen] ALEKS testing with screen reader user

 

Hi Everyone,
As promised, I am following up after our initial testing of ALEKS.
We (Phyllis Petteys, Angel Chisemet and I ) did a screen reader user test on
ALEKs last friday and it was very promising! There is still an issue with
graphical problems, which currently are labeled by "Requires human guide" so
the student will know it isn't accessible (We thought that sounded like an
odd label, and suggested, "Requires assistance"). We know leaving graphical
problems out isn't acceptable especially in online courses, so we suggested
that McGraw Hill (who now owns ALEKs) consider making the graphical images
available to download so we can print them on a tactile printer. They seemed
open to this idea, but we were talking with a regional manager and a sales
rep. so we will have to wait and see if the company is open to the idea. 
But the fact that the screen reader could read the mathematical problems
without any special plug-ins was fantastic and a huge step forward! I think
all of the problems had alternative text instead of depending on MathML. (We
just tested on IE 10 and Firefox with JAWS 13. We plan to still test on
Safari. )
In addition to the graphical problem issue, there are some other issues to
be worked out - one in particular that doesn't allow a blind student to get
past the assessment step without sighted assistance. 
I'll keep you informed as we do more testing. We only tested the student
side. We haven't tested the instructor side. Here are our findings so far:
  Usability issues: 

o   I don't know  button didn't  show in a link list; Next button didn't
show in link list; Explain link not showing in link list

o   Why are numbers and equations links? 

-          Accessibility issues:

o   Pie (navigation after assessment) isn't keyboard accessible and Pie
links not reading with screen reader.

o   Image/graphical problems not accessible. -Suggest providing images so we
could print them out as a tactile graphic.

o   Continue button after assessment is not labeled. 


Hope this helps others who are looking into the issue. 
Karen




Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses
www.pcc.edu/access
Portland Community College
971-722-4720
"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless
of disability is an essential aspect."  Tim Berners-Lee

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