[Athen] JAWS and Canvas

Robert Beach rbeach at KCKCC.EDU
Thu Jun 5 11:43:15 PDT 2014


Actually, it looks like the school is going to create me an account so I can get in and see wha the student is seeing. The student is using JAWS, but I'm not sure which version yet.

Thanks all for the suggestions so far. Once I get in, I may have more questons for you.


Robert Lee Beach
Assistive Technology Specialist
Kansas City Kansas Community College
7250 State Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66112
913-288-7671
rbeach at kckcc.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Erin Lauridsen
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2014 12:51 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] JAWS and Canvas

Hi Robert,
I've recently done some testing of Canvas with JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. Do you know what screen reader the student is using?
Canvas employs ARIA landmarks and regions to provide semantic structure to page content for screen reader users, sometimes to the exclusion of heading structure. I found Jaws and NVDA were better able to detect the ARIA markup than VoiceOver.
Additionally, when replying to discussion threads, one uses a WYSIWYG text editor. It has some nice accessibility features, but again, support varied across the screen readers.
If you have additional information on what the student is experiencing, I might be able to provide some specific tips.

Best,
Erin


On 6/5/14, John Paul Harris <harris_jp at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Robert,

>

>

>

> I have tested Canvas primarily with NVDA. It falls in the category of

> accessible, but not fully 'simple and intuitive' for a screenreader user.

> In Canvas most everything is structured as a list. I can navigate

> with the "l" key to move from list to list. On the Canvas landing

> page, this is the best way to get to the link for Discussions. The

> actual discussion page includes a large list to contain the discussion

> items. The discussion items are links within a list. The list is

> usually very large, because every discussion item has 3 associated

> links. At this point I use the Tab key to move to discussion items.

>

>

>

> Our Canvas setup includes a nice "skip to content" link on every page

> that will take you directly to the main list for the page. Using the

> "skip to content" link navigating to the discussion list is one-click.

> I thought the "skip to content" link was a feature in all Canvas

> installations. We did work with IT to modify our Canvas installation.

> So, the student's experience might be different. However, hopefully

> the suggestions work.

>

>

>

> JP

>

>

>

> From: athen-list

> [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of

> Robert Beach

> Sent: Thursday, June 5, 2014 11:07 AM

> To: Access Technology Higher Education Network

> (athen-list at u.washington.edu)

> Subject: [Athen] JAWS and Canvas

>

>

>

> Hi all,

>

>

>

> I don't have access to Canvas to test, but I received a question from

> another list. A student is having difficulties with the discussion boards.

> Any tips?

>

>

>

>

>

> Robert Lee Beach

>

> Assistive Technology Specialist

>

> Kansas City Kansas Community College

>

> 7250 State Avenue

>

> Kansas City, KS 66112

>

> 913-288-7671

>

> rbeach at kckcc.edu <mailto:rbeach at kckcc.edu>

>

>

>

>



--
Erin Lauridsen
Screen Reader Specialist
University of Michigan
erinlau at umich.edu
(734) 764-7825
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