Screen readers and the EDS

[Wessel, Keith]

Hi, all,

Per Scott and Rod's request, I gave the new version of the EDS a spin with my screen reader. I also got the help of our accessibility guru here at UIUC to evaluate it. There are two small problems and one big problem.

Smal problem #1: page has no language attribute on the HTML element. Since this page will be used internationally, that'd probably be wise. Of course, one can always operate on the assumption that all of the shibboleth.net resources are in English, but it's no big deal to add a language attribute.

Small problem #2: the form on the EDW page is missing a label. This is true for both the enter your organization form and the select from a list form.

Big problem: when typing in my organization's name, the custom combo box used is not at all accessible. My screem doesn't even pick it up, leaving me to page through the 2,000+ IDPs in the list instead of using this faster route. A proper ARIA solution would vastly improve the accessibility here, either with an ARIA combo box or an ARIA auto-complete. I'm including a link with a sample of an ARIA combo box with in-line auto-complete. If you need help adapting this to the EDS, please feel free to contact me off-list and I'll put you in touch with our accessibility specialist.

http://oaa-accessibility.org/examplep/combobox2/

Hope that helps.

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: Cantor, Scott [mailto:cantor.2 at osu.edu] 
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 11:48 AM
To: Wessel, Keith
Cc: Rod Widdowson
Subject: RE: Screen readers and the EDS

> Of course, I'd be glad to help. I should have time today or tomorrow to check
> things out for you. I might even be able to get some more formal feedback
> from our accessibility guy here at UIUC, too.
> 
> I'll send my findings to the dev list unless you say otherwise.

That's fine. Thank you.

Keep in mind that "usability" and "present a list of thousands" are probably incompatible goals, but if there's something that doesn't work but can, that's important.

-- Scott