[Accessibility_sig] gmail

[Aimee Ronn]

Dear Sean,

I am the webmaster at Knowbility, and I am in charge of the content for 
Knowbility's eNewsletter. Would it be OK to include in the upcoming 
eNewsletter your email  responding to William Greer's question about 
accessing gmail through Jaws?

Thank you.

Aimee Ronn


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean Keegan" <skeegan at htctu.net>
To: "'Discussion list for web and software accessibility issues'" 
<accessibility_sig at knowbility.org>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Accessibility_sig] gmail


|> I, unfortunately, am having a hard time accessing gmail through Jaws.
| > I will give Freedom Scientific a call to regarding gmail, but I thought
| > I would ask if anyione on this mail list can give me information or 
advice
|
| > about using Jaws to access gmail.
|
| This came up on another list I monitor some time ago, where the question 
was
| on working with students and Gmail.  My comments are posted below.
|
| First, have the student enable "Basic HTML" after logging into the G-mail
| interface (this is a hyperlink you can find through the JAWS Links List
| dialog window - Ins+F7). While this does remove some of the "interactive"
| functionality, it does improve the user experience by adding headings to
| various menu items such that the user can jump around through the 
interface.
|
| There is also some hidden text a screen-reader will speak when first 
logging
| into G-mail that suggests if using a screen-reader to enable the basic 
HTML
| option.
|
| When using the basic HTML option, the message titles are hyperlinks and
| these can be browsed by using the JAWS Links List window.
|
| You can also "Tab" through the basic HTML interface as well. If tabbing
| around the interface, when you get to the messages you will hear 
information
| about a checkbox and the sender first, followed by the message title.
|
| When viewing a message (in basic HTML mode), the subject will be a heading
| level 2 and the name of the sender will be a heading level 3, which means
| that you will then have to navigate through the To: and From: information,
| but at least you will not have to listen to the entire interface.
|
| What you can also do when viewing a message is to jump to the "Show
| Original" hyperlink - do not choose the "Activate Link" option in JAWS, 
just
| the "Move to Link" option (from the JAWS Links List dialog window - 
Ins+F7).
| This will jump you past the message To: and From: information and allow 
you
| to proceed directly into the message reply.
|
| When writing a message, make sure to enter forms mode in the text area to
| reply to a message. The text area is not very well labeled, but is just
| after the button marked "More Reply Options".
|
| This should get you started. There have been improvements in the G-mail
| interface, but (IMO) there could still be additional improvements to 
really
| enhance the usability when using a screen-reader or other AT. There is a
| group working on accessibility now at Google, but they are just starting 
to
| get their wheels rolling so it may still be a bit of time before we see 
any
| major developments.
|
| The accessibility team at Google is aware of several of the issues.
| However, I think it is *very* important to communicate these concerns to 
the
| Google representative your institution is working with. If multiple people
| are clamoring for changes to improve accessibility, then that does have an
| impact when considering development priorities.
|
| In terms of using an e-mail client to access Gmail, the options I have 
found
| successful include Outlook, Eudora, and Thunderbird.  The one nice aspect 
of
| Thunderbird is that you can load it onto a USB drive and thus have a
| portable e-mail client.
|
| Take care,
| Sean
|
| Sean Keegan
| Web Accessibility Instructor
| High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges
|
|
|
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|
|
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