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Question

508 compliance

Forum|Forum|19 years ago
August 31, 2006
7 replies
1363 views

I have a series of movies which must be able to run by people using screen reader software like JAWs. But, although the screen text is is being read out, buttons are just called "button", so the user hears unhelpful text like "button button button". There appears to be no provision for alt text that would give something more meaningful.

Furthermore, the keyboard functions of the buttons don't work in JAWs either, so that (for example) they can't use the right arrow to go to the next screen, even though it works in the standard browser setup.

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

dchilder

Inspiring

Old post, but thought I'd add an important note (works for Captivate 2 and 3). You can still use image buttons and get screen readers to read alt text for buttons. The trick is that you set the button type to "text", add the alt text that you want and click Apply (or OK). Then, change the button type to Image again and select your image of choice. Note that if you add the alt text and then immediately change it to an Image button, this won't work - you MUST click Apply or OK to get the text to stick...

David

Captiv8r

Legend

Hi David

Thanks for sharing that. Excellent little tidbit to know!

Cheers... Rick

A

Anonymous

For those who search and find this, I have found that Alt + Page Down and Alt + Page Up work with Jaws and do not play the Windows error wav. Now if I can get all the slide text to play, I'll be thrilled.

A

Anonymous

I was having the same problem, Jaws not reading the text. It took Adobe forever to respond, but they finally referred me to this technote:

JAWS disables keyboard navigation in Flash movies
http://www.adobe.com/go/fcd4391e

In Jaws: with num-lock off, quickly hit the NUM PAD MINUS key twice, and then insert+r
This turns on the invisible cursor which enables Jaws to read content in Flash files.

This worked in my test Captivate file. I need to do some testing to verify.

A

Anonymous

Thanks. I really appreciate the link. Can I ask what OS environment you are testing in? Is it standard or are there multiple OS configurations in the organization?

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avid_joy15D5

Known Participant

Your Welcome. We are only testing for Windows XP.

A

Anonymous

Another problem I am experienceing is that slide-specific text is not playing in JAWS. Are you also experiencing this?

I have to say, I used Captivate 1.1 for quite some time. I am now working on my first 2.0 project and am downright furious with Adobe about the lack of proper implementation/documentation of 508 features. If you do anything with the government or public sector, 508 is almost always a requirement. I have submitted a feature request and plan to learn how I can more directly contact Adobe's Customer Experience teams so that I can complain about this.

I have always followed Adobe's (formerly Macromedia's advice) on making files 508 compliant, and my files have passed testing. I now question that as I dig deaper.

I encourage all of you who work with Captivate and bought the product, in part or whole, because it was marketed as a way to quickly build 508 compliant content to contact Adobe and demand that they take action on this.

Is there an official Captivate User's Group that has any sway with adobe? If not, I'll start one in the hopes of organizing a large number of users into a strong voice that can leverage change in the application.

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avid_joy15D5

Known Participant

Yes, I have had that problem. When we first started developing material last year we were using an early version of JAWS (not sure which release). Everything worked fine. JAWS read every word on each slide. Then our version of JAWS was upgraded to Version 7.? and now you really have to make JAWS work for YOU. It does not automatically read every slide, it needs to be told by the user to read every slide. This seems to me that there must be a setting in JAWS that allows continuous page reading because it worked fine in the earlier version. We still have not figured that one out yet, but I did find a PPDF that has helped me out when testing out CBTs out on the JAWS machine. Here is the link: http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/JAWSkeystrokes.asp I printed one out for everyone on our team and although YOU have to make it work, a person that uses JAWS might know exactly what to turn on and have it read perfectly. Unfortunately there are no JAWS users in our office.

Hope this helps,

Matt

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Anonymous

Has anyone else used the Alt + N and Alt + B shortcuts. I am finding that they are causing the standard windows error tone to play - though the combination works.

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avid_joy15D5

Known Participant

Yes, unfortunately that tone does play. We have just dealt with it for now since we cannot come up with another solution.

Good Luck,

M. Wells

S

syncrasy

Known Participant

tone47b and macrofireball,

I'm confused by this post. I had thought buttons were routinely made accessible via alternative text, and the official Captivate specs says that buttons are supported for 508 compliance. Are you doing something unusual with the buttons? The problem described would seem like a deal breaker for someone trying to decide whether to purchase Captivate for a 508 project. What am I not understanding?

T

tone47bAuthor

Known Participant

Hi syncrasy,

There is still, in Version 2, no provision to attach alt text to buttons (or anything else). Maybe it's a Shockwave thing.

If the 508 legislation is not specific about alt text, Adobe is probably accurate in saying that Captivate is 508 compliant. But if alt text is a requirement under 508, then they may have to re-think their wording.

I'm not even sure what the requirement is under our Australian laws, but it's definitely a policy of the government agency where I work, so it's still a problem for me.

A

avid_joy15D5

Known Participant

tone47b,
I work with the State of Florida and we, too, have to abide by 508 Compliancy. As for the "button, button" issue, we could not use the "image" buttons. The "image" buttons are the ones that are not labeling the button. We had to switch to using the "text" buttons. Although they are plain and boring, they will allow JAWS to read what type of button they are, like "Next button" or "Back button". As far as the Keyboard shortcuts are concerned you will have to do some research and find out what shortcut buttons are used by Windows and JAWS because that will affect how they will work with the SWF being played. For our slides we had to use Next and Back buttons on each one to allow the screen reader to be able to read each individual slide and we use the keyboard shortcut "ALT+N" and "ALT+B" for the buttons. These button combinations would not interfere with JAWS. I have also noticed that using the "enter" button for more than one instance on a slide does not work properly either.

Hope this information is usefull!

Matt

A

Anonymous

Hello tone47b,

I have found simlilar problems with screen readers such as JAWs for Windows. Although we did manage to get some issues addressed in Captivate 1, I totally agree that there is still much work that needs to be done.

I would encourage you to
file a bug report, the more users who are reporting these types of issues, the more chance we have to getting them addressed in a future version.

Regards,
Mark

Adobe Community Expert

T

tone47bAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks Mark, will do.

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