If you were using major screen-readers,–such as Chromevox, NVDA, or any other assistive tools; you still may experience these same difficulties when using updated versions of screen-readers,–especially Chromevox updated via Chrome OS updates via a Chromebook or Chromebox.
Earlier I mentioned a magic trick with Chromevox, but now the magic trick doesn’t work anymore! Accessibility issues on Draft2Digital itself. Since these controls are image-based, that makes it too difficult for you to use these controls. The WYSIWYG editor can slow down your screen-reader’s performance. There’s no HTML option for this field. That requires you to press the tab key to jump to the next element. These combo boxes are NOT static at all because, that requires you to use a mouse to operate this element. The link lists work.. but these check boxes requires you to use a mouse too. If this is the case when using Chromevox, follow these steps:
- Open Chromevox options, and enable “Use Mouse To Change Focus” by pressing the space bar, and close the options window.
- Use your mouse to control these elements.
- Keep using the mouse, and keyboard aside when operating the publishing wizard.
The only work around of this issue is by using a mouse on your Chromebook, or any other computer.
My analysis
All of these controls are NOT compliant to accessibility laws. No changes made. It’s just the same controls presented onscreen. This is the known issue, and this is a known accessibility violation what I’m bringing to light!
There’s no button to activate Accessibility features for specific screen-readers. This is the another form of accessibility violation.
Only the navigation links above the webpage are accessible. Since they’re text-based those are the only links that are compatable with Chromevox, and other major screen-readers.
When using Chromevox Next; elements are not focusable at all,–except for certain links and buttons. This is a major issue for all screen-reader users who may have a hard time with this site,–causing them to find the another publishing platform that is right for them.
There’s no command-line option for users. Especially blind computer users who use braille displays to read data. If the braille display can’t read items on this site, most likely this website has too much accessibility violations!
There’s no accessibility statement.
Your account control panel may still be inaccessible via Chromevox, or any other major screen-reader.
Why a mouse is a workaround for this issue?
- That’s a default navigation device to use on this site.
- The controls are NOT friendly for keyboard navigation. This can effect DOS users who use a text-based browser, or browsers without scripts enabled,–or browsers that don’t support flash, and other proprietary software that is too expensive to use.
- Other users who were used to have vision, but now blind is kind of difficult for some mouse users, or specialized note-taking devices.
This problem hasn’t been fixed for 2 to 3 years. I looked back at their website, and accessibility hasn’t been upgraded to screen-reader specific layout.
What You Should Do
Always let Draft2Digital know about your difficult experience with this website. If changes needs to be immediately implemented create a petition on any of the major petitioning websitess.