I have a few suggestions to improve the accessibility of OJS for assistive technology users:
Include a link in OJS templates (header.tpl) to skip to the main content block.
Add the ARIA-Required label to form fields that are required (User registration form).
Update link text in registration and author submission forms (i.e. Click Here) so that the target of links is clear.
Also, for forms that re-load the same page (i.e. Author Submissions), it would be nice to include some indication that the submission or upload was successful (along with instructions to proceed with the submission)
.
Thanks.
Trip Rems
Center on Disability Studies Media Center
Yes, this is been on my mental todo list. I’ve filed an issue so that it doesn’t get forgotten for future versions.
I believe we do use the HTML5 required attribute, which I think is making the aria-required attribute obsolete. I’m not sure where things are in terms of “in the wild” support for this attribute for screen reader users. Do you have any real-world data about the adoption of the required attribute? I know that screen-reader tools are very expensive and so many users tend to be on fairly old versions of the technology. But I couldn’t find any good stats on this with a quick Google search.
I believe I’ve scrapped all of those terrible “Click here” links from OJS 3, but it’s possible I’ve missed one or two. Do you have any specific links you can point out? They may be gone in the new version being released soon.
Live reload poses a significant problem for screen readres that we have throughout the backend application. It’s a challenging problem which will require renovations of some major components, but one I would like to tackle in future versions.
Watch for OJS 3.0 to be released on the 31st – it represents a complete UI overhaul with a lot of new (modern) features. Doubtlessly we’ll need to do a lot of work on accessibility to make sure screen readers are able to deal with e.g. the dynamically loaded content that’s used throughout, but overall we hope it’ll be a lot more pleasant a platform to work with. I’d love to have your opinion on it once it’s released.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Thanks for the response. Regarding your questions:
Browsers that fully support HTML5 should support the required attribute-- but older browsers (particularly IE) might not. Also, using the ARIA required label is listed as a sufficient technique for meeting WCAG success criterion 3.3.3: Understanding Success Criterion 3.3.3 | Understanding WCAG 2.0, while the HTML5 required attribute is not mentioned.
As for links, I updated one on the registration page (journal/user/register). There was another on the author submission page. We are running an older version of OJS (2.4.6)-- so these may have been addressed.
Ah ok, @wrems. I’m only working with the upcoming 3.0 and it’s pretty different from top to bottom.
Browser support shouldn’t be the factor in whether or not required is sufficient. As far as I’m aware, the aria-required attribute is only meaningful for screen-reading technology.
What I’d love to know are the number of users who use screen-reading tools that don’t support the required attribute. If it’s high enough, we’ll definitely add the attribute. But I’m hesitant to add it in if we’re just going to be removing it in a year or so due to rolling adoption of the required attribute.