Hi, Scorpio.
I recognize that you're asking a general question, but I'm not sure a general
answer is possible. Besides NVDA, two workarounds occur to me, although neither
might have worked. One is to have turned off the virtual cursor while in IE.
The other is to have tried Firefox. I'm finding increasingly that Web designers
expect people to be using Firefox and so design their websites accordingly.
Apparently like you, my default is IE, but I have Firefox at hand for these
situations. I do think it would be helpful to alert FS/VFO, maybe just by
sending a copy of your message here to their email support address.
-Original Message-
From: JAWS-Users-List [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf
Of Scorpio
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2017 12:05 AM
To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com
Subject: [JAWS-Users] Jaws and Web Form Sliders
Hi Folks,
I’m wondering if this is a local problem, or a general one, as with using the
Jaws cursor on the Windows settings window on Windows 10.
I attempted to fill out a survey form for my health provider, using Internet
Explorer, and it asked me to rate certain services of theirs. I couldn’t get
past the 63% point because there were web forms containing sliders from
strongly agree, to strongly disagree.
Suffice it to say, Jaws just couldn’t pick these up, no matter how I attempted
to get to them.
Jaws would just go past them, as though they were simply blank lines.
I attempted to use the Jaws cursor to click on the words below the sliders, and
nothing would bring the sliders into focus in order to slide them left or
right, up or down.
Now, keep in mind that at this point, I had no idea that the sliders were even
there. Jaws gave no indication of seeing them, and using the arrow keys,
tabbing through the page, using the “F” key to jump to the next form control,
or using the F6 command to bring up the list of form controls on the page.
None of these systems worked. They simply weren’t there.
My only choice was to diagnose the problem, in other words, was this screen
reader specific, or an Internet Explorer bug, or maybe even a problem with the
webpage, as is most often the case. In most cases, the webpage just isn’t
formatted properly, but I then though, why would the provincial ministry ask us
to fill out a form that was not accessible, especially when it was they who
came up with the law, similar to what the Americans have with the ADA.
Needless to say, I shut down Jaws, and started up NVDA, and lo and behold, the
sliders were there. In fact, I finished the rest of the survey with NVDA, lest
I miss any other form controls that might be hidden from Jaws.
So, with all that being set, is this a local problem, just my computer, or is
this a general Jaws bug with Internet Explorer.
I should note that I am running the latest version of Jaws, the latest version
of Internet Explorer, and the latest version of Windows 10 Pro.
I can’t ask people to go to the page with the sliders, as it’s client specific,
but the one page I know where there are sliders is the Google Search settings.
There are sliders for certain settings that Jaws cannot see. In those
instances, I asked my wife to help with those areas, but I wasn’t in a
diagnosing mood at those times, and besides, Google was still new to the
accessibility game, so I just discounted them as webpage bugs, but now I’m
wondering if this was something else?
Can anyone chime in on this thread. Perhaps this might even be cause for me to
speak directly to Eric, or one of the Freedom Scientific support staff?
Scorpio
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