mac and web help

By J.R., 24 July, 2016

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello folks,
I took a class through braille institute here in Los Angeles in the basic navigation points for the mac, as I have needed to use one while at a place I go to on Friday, and for the most part it has gone well. The agency I'm with wants us to take classes to improve our skills, and I've taken several using my Windows PC, and recently delved with this on the mac. The site in question is <a href="http://www.universalclass.com">Universal Class. </a>

On their site, most of the things I can do without any issue including taking exams by interacting with the frame, and more recently, I was able to open E-mail and reply. This is where I need clarification.

First, on the Windows PC side, the E-mails in the table come up as an onclick, so I press enter on it and the PC opens it up and I go back to the top of the page. On the mac, I have to hit command to open, forgive me for the mistakes, but i think it is ctrl+option+space. Then, I realized I need to interact with the E-mail frame within the browser whether chrome or safari.

The Mac says this is a text element, not an onclick.

Has anyone used this site and can they confirm whats happening? If they need access to my account, I'm willing to get on the phone with someone so I can give them my credentials.

I'm also having issues with word on these PC's,. These macs are word 2011, and the mac version is 10.8.4. I don't know anything else about it. Word will not read me anything on the screen, but yet at Braille, the word read fine and I did no interaction.

Next, back to Universal class, I am having issues reading within the edit boxes in the assignment fields. One instructor gave me a lower grade because I was having trouble, and I indicated that. He said it was fine and advised me to move on. I know not all is web, but I would prefer to type my assignments using Word, and upload using this site instead of using the edit box. I've found that I needed the assignment, at some points. Thanks for any assistance.

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Comments

By dan on Saturday, August 6, 2016 - 17:06

Hello, I'm not sure if it is possible, but, i would try to use pages for editing simply because word can be fickle sometimes. I don't know how familiar you are with pages, but you can export it to word format if you need to do so. I'm sorry that I can't help you with the website issue and hope I understood the post correctly.
If no-one is able to figure the website out, you and I can set up a call in a few days to see what we can do.

By J.R. on Saturday, August 6, 2016 - 17:06

In reply to by dan

Hello there Dan,
Thanks so much for submitting a reply. You are the first one to reply. I appreciate the answer, and I'll see if the computers have this program on it so I can write offline and save it to a drive. If anyone else has any ideas, please share, I am open to ideas.

By splyt on Saturday, August 6, 2016 - 17:06

Word is not accessible in previous versions of office. It is *** kind of *** accessible in version 2016.

Mac is not exactly the seventh wounder in terms of productivity and has been deteriorating on web navigation mathers recently, specially if you're comming from Windows and is not used to Apple's strange way of thinking on Mac accessibility.

If I understood you correctly, one of your complains is that some text is clicable but not shown as links. You probably are upset because you can't focus it with tab or show it on a list of links, which make your productivity lower. If tghis is the case, this is not Apple's fault. Most part of Windows screen readers would announce the text as clicable, but if it's not a link then no screen reader should announce it as link.

I do not know if there's specs on way aria to classify elements as links and, if there is, I do not know if VoiceOver would support it, but this seen to really have more to do with poor accessibility on the webpage than with screen readers implementations.

About edit fields on webpages, the number of folks complaining of poor VoiceOver behavior on them is enourmous. This is Apple's fault and based on historical evidence I do not think it will be fixed cinse it is known now for a long time and it hhasn't been yet. I strongly recomend you to use TextEdit to make yiour assignments .. if you do not need to make strong formatting it should be enough.

I do bnot know if old Macs 10.8 can run the more modern versions of pages, where accessibility is way better than it priviously was .. so even if you run pages you may find the software not to be as accessible as new versions.

Hi there split,
Thanks for this. The windows side tells me that it is an onclick and pressing enter does work. I have to press ctrl plus option and space to open this link for the messages even though voice over is saying it is text: so I'm confused. I don't know what is on these computers, and won't know until i go back in a couple of weeks.

Hi Split,
I don't know how the windows screen readers do it, but i don't think that they differ on onclicks, there's a keystroke specific for that in Windows. Rest assured OI am not upset, I'm just trying to understand it better. As I indicated earlier, I can't tell you right now what versions of pages, or text edit until i return to the facility. I do know its word 2011 that they have, I remember that one. When at Braille Institute, I did get the word files to read, but i do not know what version of mac, nor what program opened it. I appreciate all help, trust me.

By splyt on Saturday, August 6, 2016 - 17:06

ctrl option space is the way you activate web elements. It is the same as double tap on iPhone.

Openning stuff with enter b t w called return on mac is not always possible and the platform does not work thhat way.

If you can open messages with ctrl option and space ... I would say things are working as they should on mac.

By J.R. on Saturday, August 6, 2016 - 17:06

Hello Split,
Why is Voiceover not reporting it as an onclick like Windows readers are? That's what is confusing me about this. It doesn't seem to be consistant. Voiceover says it is text, but i can interact with it with the ctrl plus option plus space. Very confused about this. I'm trying to learn it so that i can better my skills too, so its better to learn it when using it too. Thanks.