Version
Date of Current Version: 16 February 2011
Latest Version (HTML): http://inclusivedesign.ca/accessible-office-documents/ooimpress-mac-review
Contents
Usage Notes
Review Results
Screen Reader Test 1. Accessing an Existing Test Document
Screen Reader Test 2. Creating a New Document
Acknowledgments
At the time of testing (February, 2011), OpenOffice Impress v.3.2 (for Mac) was found to be relatively accessible using keyboard navigation. In addition, screen reader testing appeared to show that use is possible with VoiceOver OS X 10.6, but with important limitations.
Screen reader testing was performed using VoiceOver OS X 10.6.
Keyboard navigation testing was performed on OS X 10.5.8.
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results.
If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
This table summarizes the result of our reviews using the “ADOD Assessment Framework: Success criteria for assessing the accessibility of office application user interfaces”
In this test, the evaluator used a screen reader to explore a pre-existing test document that had been created by a sighted colleague, following the “Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: OpenOffice Impress 3.2”. The test document included the elements in the left-hand column (i.e., heading, table of contents, etc.).
Able to Access? |
VoiceOver OS X 10.6 |
Title slide |
Yes. |
Bulleted list with formatted text and a misspelled word |
Yes. It was possible to access the text by entering edit mode (see section 3), but the VoiceOver text attributes command (control + option + t) did not appear to function in OpenOffice. |
Image with “alt” text |
Yes. |
Table |
Yes. VoiceOver reports this as empty. After entering edit mode (see section 3) tab keys and arrow keys could be used to navigate the cells of the table. |
Flowchart created from grouping shapes |
No. |
Search function |
Yes. VoiceOver did not report what was typed into the search combo box, but did perform the search and moved to the appropriate slide. |
In this test, the evaluator used a screen reader to create a new test document which was to include the elements in the left-hand column (i.e., two levels of heading, an image, etc.).
Able to accomplish? |
VoiceOver OS X 10.6 |
Add and then edit paragraph text (e.g. do a select-cut-paste) |
Yes. To add a text frame it was necessary to ensure that the Text toolbar was enabled (View > Toolbars > Text). To add the text frame to a slide press F6 to move to the Text toolbar and press (command + enter) on the Text button to add the text frame to the current slide. |
Insert an image |
Yes. It was necessary to double click on the image with a physical mouse to access a menu from which the “Name” could be set (see “Other Comments”, below). |
Insert a 3-by-3 table and fill it with content |
No. It was possible to create a 3 by 3 table, but it was not possible to fill it with content reliably (see “Other Comments”, below). |
Create a bullet list |
It did not appear to be possible to create a bullet list. The dialog for Format > Bullets and Numbering was not accessible with VoiceOver. |
Use text formatting (bold, text colour) |
Yes. It was possible to set bold, it did not appear to be possible to set a font color. The font color control did not appear to be accessible with VoiceOver. |
Save document |
Yes. |
Other Comments by the Screen Reader Tester: |
Interacting with OpenOffice was non-intuitive for VoiceOver users. VoiceOver users are accustomed to using special object navigation and interaction commands (some of which crash VoiceOver when used in Impress). Using more standard commands such as those described in the message below resolved this for the most part. Pressing enter on a selected object on a slide entered edit mode, pressing escape exited edit mode. For some of the above tasks it was necessary to be in edit mode to access all of the contents of the slide. Table navigation was non-intuitive as it did not use any of VoiceOver’s table navigation commands. Once in edit mode on a table using the arrow or tab keys would navigate cells, however this was not reliable. Using (option + arrow keys) was slightly more reliable. VoiceOver did not report row and column position while navigating the tables. See also VoiceOver table navigation bug http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=103230 There were times when attempting to activate a control with VoiceOver (control + option + space), or with the virtual mouse (shift + control + command + space) would not work. In these cases it was necessary to ensure that the control was in the cursor (control + option + F3), and then to physically click using the touchpad. At different times it was necessary to disable cursor tracking (control + option + shift + F3). Cursor tracking allows the focus to follow the VoiceOver virtual focus. This appeared to have some undesirable results when navigating within toolbars. The OpenOffice help pages are known to be poorly accessible with VoiceOver, see above table bug. |
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project (http://inclusivedesign.ca/accessible-office-documents).
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Copyright © 2011 Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University
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