Introduction
I am blind and therefore use a screen reader (several, actually) to access online material. I try to perpetuate the notion that I am reasonably knowledgeable about accessibility and that I am a competent screen reader user.
This rant was inspired by an email from Adobe asking me to complete a survey. “Here’s my chance to tell them about issues I have with Acrobat”, I thought. Or not.
The Email from Adobe
All links in the email were graphics with no alt text. Using my powers of intuition (guesswork), I tried the first one and that opened the form.
The Form
It started out OK. Instructions were clear enough. There were radio buttons for choosing the language and they read nicely as long as I reached them with the tab key or by pressing r (NVDA’s key for getting to radio buttons). As is often the case, using arrow keys did not result in the label being presented along with the state of the radio button. While not best coding practice, I can live with that.
The Next button was well labelled. If my memory is correct, focus did not go to the top of the next page. Again, I can live with that.
Rating scales
Several questions involved a rating scale with choices from 0 to 5. There was nothing to tell the screen reader (and, therefore, me) that the numbers were active elements. Arrowing to the number I wanted and pressing Enter selected it. There was no feedback that it had been chosen the first time, until proceeding to the next question, when I was asked why I had chosen “2”.
Radio buttons in tables
Column headings were, for example, level of satisfaction, while row headings were products. That approach can work well with screen readers, provided markup is done correctly. A problem arose, however, because some products were identified by a graphic with no alt text. Not even an add-on for describing images gave me a clue and I had to choose something, or it would not let me proceed. One positive was that feedback when leaving something out was effective.
The crunch
Despite almost none of the products being relevant and wondering why I was taking up so much of my time to provide Adobe with market research, I pressed on until reaching a page that stopped me completely. I am guessing that it was some sort of drag and drop exercise, but not even the instructions made that clear. Pressing Next resulted in chastisement for not having moved or chosen or something (I forget the details).
In a burst of optimism that replying to Adobe’s email would reach a human, I did so. I will be surprised if I hear back from them.
Final Comments
There are several issues with the current Acrobat which, at best, detract from its use with a screen reader. Here was an opportunity to provide genuine feedback. While I have discussed with their excellent tech support people, I doubt that my grumbles go any further. But the opportunity was lost due to an inaccessible form.
I believe the real reason for asking for feedback was to gather information about product usage, and that accessibility was not a consideration. But by producing an inaccessible form they missed out on my general, as well as specific feedback.
According to this page (written three years ago), Adobe does have a commitment to accessibility. Perhaps the survey was a glitch produced by enthusiastic people in the marketing department who need upskilling in the area of correct structure.
Or, as that page I cited was written three years ago, perhaps the laudable principles espoused there are no longer fashionable.