Accessibility Reviews

A community-driven resource to both find and share information on the accessibility of tools, services, platforms, and so on.

If you have experience with a resource and how accessible it may or may not be, please contribute. Ideally, if you follow the existing format this will be much easier for others to use as well as for us to maintain.

The document is managed on GitHub and uses Markdown for contributions. If you do not use GitHub and/or Markdown, you can still submit via email (email address still needed). Please include the date of your review in the content you submit.

Online Surveys

Tools used for polls, surveys, or questionnaires.

SurveyMonkey

22 January 2019. Took a Smashing Magazine survey using JAWS with Internet Explorer 11. It appears no special work needs to be done when setting up a form.

References

Suggestion

A SurveyMonkey form is accessible to a JAWS / Internet Explorer 11 user. SurveyMonkey radio buttons are hidden to users in Windows High Contrast Mode.

SurveyGizmo

22 January 2019. Took a U of Colorado survey using JAWS with Internet Explorer 11.

Suggestion

A SurveyGizmo form is accessible to a JAWS / Internet Explorer 11 user. If you are using another SR/browser combination, please add to this.

Formstack

23 January 2019. Took an IAAP survey using JAWS with Internet Explorer 11.

References

Questions scrolled way off screen, headings were imperfect. All questions could be navigated and answered. Error messages were not inline (for radio buttons at least) and the overall error message was a very long run-on list of error text as a live region that caused JAWS to choke and stutter instead of announcing them all.

Suggestion

Formstack may pose problems for JAWS/IE11 users, zoom users, and mobility impaired users.

Typeform

11 March 2020. Typeform generally does not work with screen readers across platforms. Field labels are not exposed correctly, question navigation is problematic, and answers are not consistently exposed. Color contrast is below WCAG minimums.

There is no public bug tracker to follow issues.

References

Suggestion

For any organization that needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use Typeform.

Google Forms

December 2018. Created a form (Dutch) and tested with VoiceOver/Safari and Jaws/IE 11.

References

Suggestion

It is possible to fill and submit a Google Form with a screenreader but the more complex components such as linear scale and multiple choice grid can be confusing.

GetFeedback

2 February 2019. Took a 3Play Media captioning survey using JAWS with Internet Explorer 11.

References

Suggestion

GetFeedback will pose problems for JAWS/IE11 users, low-vision users, mobility impaired users, and dictation software users.

Qualtrics

2 February 2019. Took the 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey using JAWS with Internet Explorer 11.

References

Suggestion

Do not use Qualtrics if you expect to support screen reader users. Certainly not for WCAG 2.x compliance.

Content Platforms

This can include web content management systems or other tools that allow authors to post their writing for broad consumption on the web.

Google AMP Stories

4 September 2019. Reviewing the AMP Stories demo page, controls are unlabeled, most images are missing text alternatives, content is scattered between controls. Generally an unusable experience with a screen reader and problematic with a keyboard.

References

Suggestion

For any organization that needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use AMP Stories.

Dev.to

31 January 2019. Dev.to lets users author their content via Markdown, so they are able to use all of its structuring and semantic features (e.g. regarding headline hierarchy, quotes, images, lists).

The overall interface contains many links without accessible names, some of them apparently only existing to enlarge the click area - see the article teaser listing. Said teaser listing also infinite scrolling.

Regarding keyboard accessibility: outline on focus is not disabled via CSS, but some elements are reachable only on hover (example: the “Follow” control inside a tag list item). Said control, again, is an anchor element with a href="#" but should be a button.

Suggestion

For any organization that needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use Dev.to.

Medium

4 September 2019. Medium now has a method to provide alternative text for images. Because it was only recently added, some authors got around this by adding a description of the image in the caption, but screen readers will often announce the file name of the image instead. Those Medium posts will not be updated unless the author decides to do so.

Medium does not support tables for data grids. Authors get around this by posting screen shots of tables. These screen shots also do not have alternative text.

Medium can make it difficult for some authors to identify how to structure content correctly, resulting in bullet lists that are just lines preceded by asterisks, or headings that are just bold text.

References

Suggestion

For any organization whose content needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use Medium.

Hashnode

As of Q1 2020, Hashnode is a blogging platform directed at coders (similar to Devt.to). Authors create posts in markdown. The team seems very attentive to reports of accessibility issues. At this time, it’s very important that authors use accessible markdown including proper alt text, headings, and links. Keyboard operability is good but the site needs better focus visibility. Aggregated pages on the hashnode domain need better semantic structure.

References

Suggestion

For any organization that needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use Hashnode.

Video Conferencing

Zoom

21 January 2019. From polling blind JAWS users, Zoom works well for setting up calls and participating via audio only.

Suggestion

Zoom is generally accessible.

Source Control

Github website

3 February 2019. With one or two exceptions, the Github website has good general accessibility and is usable with most Assistive Technologies (AT). Exceptions include horizontal scrolling at high zoom or magnification, use of browser default focus indication, and missing alt texts on non-essential images (like user contribution graphs). An overuse of aria-label with sometimes nonsensical names makes some controls a bit confusing (“Only those with link Learn more about permission levels to this repository can merge pull requests.”)

References

Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) for Github

Suggestion

The Github website is inconvenient for magnification users, and for keyboard users with low vision, but is otherwise usable by most people. The Github team is responsive to issues relating to accessibility.

Project Management Software

Trello

November 2018. Trello is generally unusable or difficult to use for some people.

This includes low-vision users who use browser zoom (everything is absolutely positioned and overlaps, hiding most of the content) and low-vision users using screen magnification software (mouse-users can get around and reach everything, but keyboard-users cannot rely on their focus to move their viewport around since Trello has its own “application” focus for its built-in keyboard shortcuts).

The keyboard shortcuts are single-character keys, causing trouble for speech recognition users (at the time of testing there was no way to change these or turn them off).

Sighted keyboard users of all types aren’t able to move their focus into opened popups/submenus, except for the few who have an autofocussed input inside. Focus also often seems to end up in random places after performing an action. “Star” controls only appear on mouse hover and cannot be reached with keyboard, and are not real controls but clickable spans.

Screen reader users contend with lack of structure (something they could otherwise use to supplement the difficulty of using the keyboard shortcuts for navigation), unlabelled controls or controls with title attributes only.

References

Partial WCAG 2.1 mini-audit.

Suggestion

Avoid choosing Trello for your project management unless all team members have excellent vision and can use a pointer. Having a large monitor helps. Its main strength is being a simple, straightforward and un-opinionated management tracker or even just for keeping track of TO-DO’s, where teams/owners choose their own rules and decide how complex their flows will be.

Collaboration Software

Slack

30 May 2019. Slack’s web interface and native clients are generally accessible to skilled screen reader users.

Suggestion

Given Slack’s history of accessibility issues, be certain to test with your users before rolling it out within an organization.

References

Status Of The Accessibility Of Slack

Widgets

ag-Grid

9 September 2019. The ag-Grid library promises to make data tables with plenty of add-on features. It offers information on its accessibility features and benefits. However, controls to use the features built into columns (such as sorting, filtering, re-ordering) are inaccessible to keyboard-only and screen reader users. Further, NVDA appears to be unable to navigate out of the row that holds the column headers and into the data. Reading order is still a potential issue unless developers know to add a specific attribute to the code.

References

Suggestion

For any organization whose site or content needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use ag-Grid.

React Datepicker

9 September 2019. The ReactJS Datepicker provides some accessibility notes for developers who want to know how accessible the control is, however it only speaks to keyboard support — which is not conveyed to users by default. Generally the date picker lacks accessible names for controls, keyboard support, and sufficient contrast along with some generally incorrect use of table elements.

References

Suggestion

For any organization whose site or content needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use React Datepicker.

Media Players

Brightcove Player

19 September 2019. The Brightcove Player provides accessibility notes that only addresses standard keyboard behaviors for buttons and makes no statement of WCAG compliance. It does recommend that the JAWS/ Chrome pairing should be avoided when using the player.

References

No bugs filed, but from a quick review:

Suggestion

For any organization whose video content needs to meet WCAG 2.x, whether by law or other requirements, do not use Brightcove Player.