RE: requirements to test with Jaws in different organizations

The answer depends entirely on your objectives. For instance, there is no requirement whatsoever to use any screen reader or any other assistive technology when conducting an audit for WCAG conformance. You *can* use a screen reader, but any issues you find could have been found by other means or they are not WCAG non-conformances at all (such as screen reader bugs or adverse behaviours arising from the use of heuristics).

I would argue that using a screen reader does not decrease the workload if you are doing a WCAG audit properly. Any issue it appears to reveal still needs to be checked in the code to verify that it's a real issue. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not, or it turns out to be a different issue than you first thought. Also, some screen readers (especially JAWS) hide some WCAG non-conformances by using heuristics to fix bad coding. I actually use screen readers less now than I used to because the results are so unreliable.

I reckon you can only use a screen reader to fully or partially test about 10 of the 50 WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria. That obviously doesn't tell you anything at all about your level of WCAG conformance.

That said, there is a lot of value in screen reader testing if you have some other objective, such as an assistive technology review or an "accessibility test", either of which could mean whatever you want them to (in contrast to a WCAG audit, which has a tightly defined scope).

I don't know of any organizational / governmental regulations requiring testing with Jaws that would affect the educational market in the US, but that's not to say there aren't any.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com> 
Sent: 05 July 2021 09:52
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: requirements to test with Jaws in different organizations

Hi,

This might be slightly off for the list, but don't know where else to ask that would be good. So I am working on a project for an online education platform that wants to move into the U.S market.

The platform would like to limit testing at least part of the development process to nvda and voiceover, to decrease costs / workload, I personally would like to test with -Jaws all the time but often one can't for various reasons. So does anyone have a pattern for how they do periodic testing with Jaws in such a way as to decrease workload). And more importantly if anyone knows of any organizational / governmental regulations requiring testing with Jaws that would affect the educational market in the U.S?

Thanks,
Bryan Rasmussen

Received on Monday, 5 July 2021 09:46:48 UTC