Today one of my visitors told me that he could not read/see where there was a field to fill into, what the field is for. e.g. the username field did not report back to his screenreader that it was a username field. Same applies for all other fields that can be filled in when logging in or creating a new user account or requesting a new password. None of the fields reported what they were to his screenreader. Luckely there were text descriptions close to the fields so he could figure it out eventually.
I don't know if anyone is working on the accesibility of these forms for drupal 6.x, I have searched only briefly and will do more reading on this subject as I do want my site to be as user friendly as possible. So I thought to at least write something in the forum about this to let all you know it's missing. (as apposed to submit a bug report or something similar.. Please tell me though if it should be a bug report..)
Regards, crazybite.
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Adding Content in Drupal 7 Difficult for Visually Impaired
I'm working with a blind user who is trying to learn to add content to his own Drupal 7.8 website, and he is reporting the same issue, that the JAWS screen reader does not define fields for adding content. We are actually trying to switch to WordPress 3.2.1 which may offer better accessibility for him as an administrator. [Update: Not all admin links in WordPress were accessible to him so we abandoned that.] Below are his comments about Drupal 7.8:
"I was able to login to the site. However, almost everything seemed confusing to me after that. I did click on (pressed enter on) some of the links you suggested for trying some editing, but (still confused) I was unable to get to any place I could edit anything. The only “form” (that might be a screen reader term describing an edit control where one can type in text) I could access was the search form at the bottom of the page. I will accept some instruction concerning how I could better describe what I’m seeing on a webpage. . . . One of the things I was not expecting is the talk about “Open ID”, a topic about which I have never heard until this exercise. Another is that the pages seem cluttered, containing some redundant links."
The redundant links to which he refers is a main menu block which I had placed in a sidebar as well as along the top. He prefers to have only one of the same menu on each page to access, which would mean that a duplicate sidebar menu should be placed only for the purpose of a multi-level navigation system which expands upon a single-level top menu.
Created Issue for Fields Accessibility
I created an Issue for better fields accessibility for screen readers, here: http://drupal.org/node/1268954
Also, we finally found the problem for Administration Fields accessibility is that in Drupal 7, these are presented as an overlay screen which screen readers cannot access. To allow accessibility for visually impaired website administrators, turn off the Administrative Overlay option under "People" in the Personal Profile for each user. Or, create a new role and turn off administration overlay in the permissions for that role. The overlay module itself can also be disabled.
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I haven't been following the accessibility work, but I do know that it is ongoing. You may want to join this group to keep up on things: http://groups.drupal.org/accessibility
Michelle