[Athen] screen readers recognizing tables on webpages

[Robert Beach]

Hmmm, this could be it.  It presents as a list of names rather than three columns of names.  Interestingly enough, what would be the header row gives all three items on the same line, but the rest is a list.

Oh well, at least I know how to work around it now.


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

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Bossley, Pete
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 2:53 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] screen readers recognizing tables on webpages

Typically where you see this issue is when the table is missing cells so that it isn't really a true table. I've noticed that JAWS and NVDA tend to assume tables that don't have a uniform number of cells and rows are being used for layout or presentation and linearize the content.
It could also be that the table is marked as role=presentation but without looking at the code I couldn't say for sure.

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Jennifer Sutton
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 3:20 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] screen readers recognizing tables on webpages


What I've seen is that things can be marked up as tables, and the s.r. announces them as such, but you can't navigate them like that. And most often, that is because the table is really being used for presentation.



Yes, it's very puzzling that screen readers are intervening/trying to interpret, and as far as I know, JFW is the one that's doing this most.


Perhaps it would be beneficial to see if folks who are working on Canvas accessibility directly can explain what's going on more clearly than I have been able to do, here.



Jennifer



On 9/19/2016 12:12 PM, Robert Beach wrote:
It's more than that.  The screen readers aren't even recognizing that it is a table.  There are no rows or columns at all except when I use Fire Fox with NVDA.

Very puzzling.


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

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Gaeir Dietrich
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 2:07 PM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] screen readers recognizing tables on webpages

I know in Word, you would need to mark the header row on the table for it to interact properly with a screen reader. I have been told that Canvas also allows the header row to be marked, so I would suspect that improper mark-up is the problem.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gaeir (rhymes with "fire") Dietrich
HTCTU Director
408-996-6047
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Beach
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2016 11:53 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network (athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>)
Subject: [Athen] screen readers recognizing tables on webpages

Hey all,

I had a very interesting situation.  I was working in Canvas and came across a list of items.  Supposedly this was a table with three columns.  In Internet Explorer, neither JAWS nor NVDA would recognize it as a table but did read the information.  Unfortunately I could not tell what items were in which columns.  Using FireFox, JAWS still did not recognize the table, but NVDA did.

Is this a matter of the way the instructor created the table?  Is it a matter of the LMS using non-standard code?  I would like to let the instructor know how to fix this if it is possible for him to do so.

Thanks.


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




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