How to get feedback on visually-impaired accessibility for web apps?

Hello! I'm making changes to a web app that involves some aria classes, and I read the docs about how they work, but I'm not real confident in my ability to construct them into something that produces a well-usable experience for someone who's using the app. Is there a good way to get direct feedback from someone who uses a screenreader, or otherwise get some evaluation on whether what I've fumbled together is actually functioning well?

comfyquaker , (edited )

a browser extension i use for a cursory check is ‘WAVE evaluation tool’. which examines your webpage and reviews your structure, tags, color contrast etc. Like what you posted in your own response, you can always just learn to use a screen reader. i use NVDA and it didn’t really take all that long to learn how to use it. you will certainly gain a new perspective if you do.

hope this helps!

apologies on redundant sharing. the previous comments were not loaded for me.

Vincent ,

By far the best first step you can take is to try it yourself. Follow a ten-minute tutorial on how to use one (Rob Dodson has good introductions, such as this one on VoiceOver - this is really a case where videos work best to learn), and then see if you can manage to navigate your web app using it. Ideally even with your screen turned away, but that's probably too had at first, and also makes it hard to see what's going wrong.

PumpkinEscobar ,

There is a WAVE browser extension and some others, you can also use one of the screen readers yourself. I think that’s actually really helpful. I haven’t done that in a while but I remember when I did the screen reader functioned pretty differently than I thought it would

mozz OP Admin , (edited )
mozz avatar

Yeah definitely. Someone sent me a pretty good article that recommended that you use a screen reader a little bit on your own stuff, one for making sure it's accessible, but two because it teaches you a different way to look at your design process.

IDK how much in depth time I'm planning to commit to this whole thing but I do think applying a screen reader is necessary if I'm going to claim my stuff works with it. I can't really see it being all that effective just to apply the right classes and hints to the existing page and hoping it all works out without testing it...

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