[Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

[Hadi Rangin]

Hello everyone,

We will be discussing this issue with Microsoft in our next meeting. Please hold on and don't change your best practices because screen readers don't support some features as expected. We want a consistent and clear transformation of information from one format to another format regardless of what SR or assistive software we are using.

Reminder: as most of you know we have a relative good collaboration with Microsoft and meet on monthly bases to discuss MS Office accessibility/usability. If you are interested in this effort, please let me know. Participation in this collaboration group requires signing an NDA and a few hours in a month time commitment.

Thanks,
Hadi

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Karlen Communications
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 7:33 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

I've had this problem for more than a month. Since the first iteration of JAWS 18. I am using the Office 365 desktop applications with fast insider builds and the behaviour has not changed since the first iteration of JAWS 18.

It is similar to what I experience using JAWS with PDF documents since JAWS 17...JAWS tells me there are no images in the PDF document despite the fact that there are and I've given them Alt Text. In the case of the PDF documents, none of the JAWS graphics related keyboard commands can "find" any graphics in my documents.

Cheers, Karen

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Pratik Patel
Sent: February 22, 2017 10:18 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

Can I ask the following to those experiencing the issues?

  1.  What exact version of JAWS are you running?
  2.  What specific version of Word 2016 are you using?
This could be related to a potential change that the Office team has made recently. A month or so ago, the Office team had discussed fixing the alt and image issues in Word.

Pratik


From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Karlen Communications
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 8:22 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

We have to continue to add the Alt Text for images. JAWS is not the only adaptive technology being used by people. There are other screen readers and Text-to-Speech tools that can access the Alt text. We have to focus on the best practices/standards, and not a specific adaptive technology where a tool/feature might be broken from one version to another. Also, as indicated by someone, the reading of Alt text is working for them using the same version of JAWS, so this may be a device problem or something else that is going on.

Bottom line is that we make documents as accessible as they can be using the tools in the document format/application and when something breaks from one version to another, we let the adaptive technology developers know and lobby for getting it fixed.

In this case, even though JAWS is not reading the Alt Text for the images in a Word document, if I press Ctrl + Shift + letter O, I get a list of objects and the images are listed by their Alt Text. It is just when I go through the document in a logical manner that the problem surfaces.

Cheers, Karen

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Preast, Vanessa
Sent: February 22, 2017 8:05 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

If this is the case.... How does this change our recommendations/instructions for alt text in Word?

I'm about to distribute some instructions to our institution on how to add Alt text to Word document images. I want to make sure my instructions are accurate and functional.

Should I tell them to add the description in 1) The title, 2) the description box, or 3) both?  Until this point, it sounded like #2 is what most accessibility experts are recommending.

Best,
Vanessa

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Karlen Communications
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 1:35 PM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

Yes, in my case JAWS 18 either says nothing or says "question" when it comes across an image with Alt Text...so not in your imagination...it isn't consistently reading the Alt text.

Cheers, Karen

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Sherman
Sent: February 21, 2017 1:02 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Word 2016 and JAWS/NVDA Image ALT text

In Word 2016, using JAWS 18 standard settings, JAWS will not read the ALT text that is in the Description box. If there is text in the description box it simply reads "Blank". It will read text in the Title box if it exists.

NVDA on the other hand, will read text in the Description box, and only read Title box if no Description exists.

Am I doing something wrong or is this a JAWS bug?

Joseph

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