SAMHSA's Section 508 Resources

Using Assisted Technology to Test

Q. What is SAMHSA's Section 508 Team looking for when they use Assistive Technology (primarily JAWS) to test documents or site?

The first thing is to ensure that when it initializes that text are read as seen and that bullets, images, and graphs, charts, tables, diagrams; that  ALL information is conveyed in such a manner that the depiction of the information is the same and can be easily navigated by individuals with mobile and visual impairments.

When testing tables for navigation, the Web Team ensures that it is possible to navigate through the table by utilizing the JAWS. So in addition to JAWS reading the table all the way through, the testers will stop JAWS in the middle, end, beginning of a table and utilize the JAWS function keys after selecting a data cell to identify the row and column headers, or identify the data cells in a single row or identifying the data cells in a selected column.

• The JAWS Keystrokes can be found at: http://www.freedomscientific.com/training/training-JAWS-keystrokes.htm
• For instructions on how to utilize JAWS contact: http://www.freedomscientific.com/
• JAWS: Commonly Used Keystrokes

 

Last Update: 06/17/2009