5. Assistive Technology Testing
Activity: Using ChromeVox to Find Accessibility Features
NOTE: If you are a regular day-to-day screen reader user (i.e., you are blind or have significant vision loss) use your own screen reader for this activity instead of ChromeVox.
Ideally, accessibility features will be invisible to typical users so they do not interfere with their user experience. In addition to using a screen reader to identify accessibility problems, it is an important tool for identifying features that add to the accessibility of a website, so when reporting you are not identifying potential barriers that may have hidden alternatives.
In this activity practice using ChromeVox to identify hidden accessibility features in a website. Refer back to ChromeVox Screen Reader in the section ChromeVox Screen Reader, and have the keyboard commands list beside you when completing this activity.
- Open the Showcase Demo Site in Chrome, and turn on ChromeVox.
- Leave your monitor turned on so you can see what you are doing.
- Put your mouse away, and use only your keyboard to navigate through the site.
- Create a list of all the hidden accessibility features on the site. You may also list the visible accessibility features if there are any.
- In addition to listing the accessibility features, if relevant, describe what the screen reader announces when it encounters the accessibility features in your list.
Hint: Some of the features to listen for are WAI-ARIA enabled elements. You may need to examine the HTML source to determine what they are, or use the Chrome Inspect tool to see how WAI-ARIA is being used.