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<p class="MsoNormal">Broadly speaking, no, screen readers are not writing individual scripts to support individual web applications. Doing so would actually be pretty challenging from a technical perspective. The exception to this statement is for installed
applications like Microsoft Teams or the “new outlook” which are technically web pages in a self-contained web view packaged as a native windows application.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What Microsoft and Google are doing with their respective web applications is making very careful use of role=application, which automatically puts screen readers in passthrough mode which allows the keyboard shortcuts to be pushed to the
underlying web application. The challenge with that approach is that the application then has to respond to whatever keyboard input the user sends and the screen reader has to behave as expected.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I haven’t used <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">
Perusall in a long time but I doubt they have the accessibility and web expertise to execute on this model – doing so would require more attention to detail and a close collaboration with an accessibility engineering team than I suspect they have put into place
here.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"> athen-list <athen-list-bounces@mailman12.u.washington.edu>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Deborah Armstrong via athen-list<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, April 15, 2025 5:10 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list@u.washington.edu><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Athen] Perusall update<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">No good news. I have now tried both JAWS and NVDA with Firefox, Chrome and Edge. Same problem. It has a ton of keystrokes for moving to different areas of the interface. But you must press those keys when
your virtual cursor or browse mode is off. And once you turn the mode back on to actually read, you are then positioned at the top of the page.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I think the problem is that the virtual cursor or browse mode is looking at the HTML document model and does not pay attention to the position of the focus when caret browsing mode is on. Web pages in the
days of the static web had no cursor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">But now, a web app is just like a desktop app; it has focus and apparently the screen readers are unable to track that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">But what’s weird is that in apps like Office online and google docs they do. Also in web apps like Visual Studio Code and Discord, the focus is also tracked. So are these screen readers writing special scripts
and add-ons for specific web-based apps instead of simply supporting the concept of a web-based app?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">If that’s so, that’s band-aid access.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I wrote to Freedom scientific support, and they said they don’t support Perusall, which of course isn’t shocking. But as more and more apps transition to being browser based, the screen readers need to do
a better job.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I really think this app is WCAG compliant with all the keyboard shortcuts and read out loud features it offers. And it has adjustments for fonts and colors and lets you resize all its panels and supports the
dyslexic font. So I think the problem is with the screen readers that fail to understand the web is now an operating system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"> athen-list <athen-list-bounces@mailman12.u.washington.edu>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Deborah Armstrong via athen-list<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, April 10, 2025 8:54 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list@u.washington.edu><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Athen] Perusall update<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">So the folks at Perusall are very supportive. Even their CTO contacted me about my accessibility issue. I am going to screen share with one of their developers in just a few minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Perusall does automatically OCR any document the teacher embeds in its interface. But if it is a low-res image, such as a camera-phone photo of a page, the OCR is lousy. Hence professors really need to put
accessible content in to the app.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">For selecting text, the keyboard user turns on caret browsing mode and selects text with the shift and arrow keys. To annotate (comment) on it) enter is pressed and the user is now in an edit field, able to
easily type and correct text, just as if they were editing a discussion in Canvas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Screen reader users need to be sure to toggle the JAWS virtual cursor or the NVDA browse mode off. Mac users need to use Chrome or Firefox because they say, Safari doesn’t have caret browsing. And I’d guess
VoiceOver users would also need to disable the quick key navigation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Anyway, the problem I believe is really one with the screen readers, as they don’t support caret browsing. Once you turn off browse or virtual cursor mode, you get no feedback.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I’ve written to Freedom Scientific, saying this is a broader issue than just one web-based app. Caret browsing should be fully supported with feedback when that cursor is moved and focus changes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The screen readers are stuck in this 20<sup>th</sup>-century paradigm of the static web page, where you occasionally use a Forms or Focus mode to fill in a form. But the reality now of web-based apps means
they need to fully support the browser as if it is an operating system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">--Debee<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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