Almost Incomplete Inaccessibility in WordPress 3.8 Using Various Screen Readers

  • Resolved LotusDreamer

    (@lotusdreamer)


    10 years, 11 months ago

    Hi,

    After updating to 3.8 last night, I am now rather terror-stricken to discover that much of my WP Admin screen and it’s options are inaccessible. I am totally blind, and have tried using both System Access and NVDA for testing, in both IE and Firefox on a Toshiba PC running Windows 7.

    In Firefox, many links now only speak the word “Link?” or “Link? Submenu”, but the number of these links seem to be few and far between. I have discovered, (basically through trial and error and guess work), how to get to my profile, and how to post a new page, post or link. But finding a reliable solution to get to my Plugins Submenu, Pages submenu, and other menus which were totally accessible to me in the last build, has not occurred as of yet. This state of affairs is rather terrifying to a site owner who does regular updates, particularly now in the holiday season.

    I have managed, again in Firefox, on a couple of occasions, to discover my “Settings” and other submenus, but can’t figure out how to successfully duplicate finding them, (as the appropriate titles to links that appear to be constantly available on the dashboard are no longer spoken).

    When testing in IE, there is a link called “Menu” that is spoken, but I can’t seem to activate it. Using NVDA I have tried pressing enter on this link, space, and shift caps lock M to try to open it (although it doesn’t speak the fact that there is a submenu) but no go.

    Am happy to share audio demos, clarify in any way or otherwise answer questions. This is very disheartening for me at the moment, and any assistance will be most gratefully received.

    Thanks so much,
    Kim

Viewing 11 replies - 31 through 41 (of 41 total)
  • Thread Starter LotusDreamer

    (@lotusdreamer)

    Well, this is interesting.

    I just went back to my admin dashboard and all is working absolutely beautifully. I have no clue what resolved the issue. I’ve made some changes in my NVDA settings, but that’s all. As of 30 minutes ago it wasn’t working prior to those settings changes, now it’s perfect.

    Sorry to freak everyone out; how embarrassing! ?? All appears wonderful now! Very odd!

    My sincere thanks for everyone stepping in; I don’t know what happened, but I’m very relieved that all appears to be smooth sailing once again!

    Warm Wishes,
    Kim

    Sorry to freak everyone out; how embarrassing! ?? All appears wonderful now! Very odd!

    No need to apologize. So very glad to see you were able to get things working properly!

    Yes Kim very glad to see you’ve gotten everything resolved!

    Thread Starter LotusDreamer

    (@lotusdreamer)

    Thank you very much; I’m one very happy and relieved WP user, I can tell you.

    Just a note of interest. The only other thing that I did, prior to my NVDA settings changes, was to update Firefox to the latest version. When it updated, however, I didn’t manually refresh the screen, so thought that hadn’t resolved the WP issues. Whether or not that was partially the culprit, guess I’ll never know. ?? It’s amazing how all the various pieces of software, etc, have to play cooperatively together and how one little check box or setting can screw something up.

    Thanks again!

    Thanks to @lotusdreamer for bringing this issue to us. For future reference please consider posting your issue at Make WordPress Accessible, the home of the WordPress Accessibility Team.

    Thanks to Matt for making the connection and posting on Make WordPress Accessible.

    Thank you to everyone who replied and gave support to @lotusdreamer.

    Special kudos to Amanda Rush for going the extra mile by suggesting a Skype session. Way to go Amanda!

    Thanks to @ceotty for pointing out that you should disregard my advice to post issues to Make WordPress Accessible. That’s what the support forums are for. Thanks Cyndi.

    Still puzzling about the mobile version of the site.
    If the screen is enlarged by Ctrl+ the layout jumps into mobile version.
    For people who enlarge the screen and only use a keyboard the menu of this mobile version is not accessible .
    I think a setting “disable mobile version” is necessary.
    Is it worth a ticket on the trac?

    Just posted a ticket in the trac about the keyboard accessibility of the menu.

    If the screen is enlarged by Ctrl+ the Dashboard layout jumps into mobile version.
    For people who enlarge the screen and only use a keyboard, the menu of this mobile version is not easy accessible.
    A screen reader user can’t see the size of the screen, so when it’s in mobile version, that’s a problem for them too.

    The menu button has no label and if selected, the focus stays on the menu button. So the menu can only be reached entering shift-tab. The user than can navigate though the menu from the bottom to the top backwards.

    My recommendations

    • Add a label to the menu
    • Set the focus on the first menu-item after selecting the menu
    • For screen reader users: change the style hidden into the class screen-reader-text
    • And maybe add an option: disable mobile version with the user settings?

    Did anyone find more functionality missing using assistive technology?

    The menu button has no label and if selected, the focus stays on the menu button. So the menu can only be reached entering shift-tab. The user than can navigate though the menu from the bottom to the top backwards.

    Is that what’s happening? I don’t really know. I mean, navigation itself isn’t hindered, just the menu doesn’t indicate it has been expanded nor is anything within the menu spoken.

    It’s especially confusing to me since I was able to “trick” the mobile version on my computer by playing with the zoom and in doing so get all the elements to be spoken as per normal. Even though from a visual standpoint nothing is showing on the screen (e.g., menus stay collapsed).

    I’ve added comments to the ticket.

    My site contetn wont load correctly when I loged in to wordpress in Internet Explorer 11.

    @slams – Are you using a screen reader or other assistive technology that you are having trouble with? Because this thread is about that. If you are having a different issue, please start another topic so the forum volunteers can assist you.

Viewing 11 replies - 31 through 41 (of 41 total)
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