Assignments / Assignment 1
Assignment 1: Screen Reader Familiarization
Due Wednesday, September 9. Individual.
Screen readers are a common assistive technology that web developers need to understand to create accessible user experiences for blind and low-vision people. In this assignment, you will start to familiarize yourself with screen readers and their capabilities. The goal is to understand screen readers well enough to start developing design intuition for what makes a good screen reader user experience.
Two tracks
Work through this checklist first. Using your screen reader, can you do all six of these without looking them up?
- move by heading, and jump to a chosen heading level
- list the links on a page and jump to one
- move by landmark or region
- enter and leave forms mode (if your screen reader has it), and operate a form control
- read a table cell by cell, with row and column headers announced
- find text on a page
If any of the six is new to you, take Track A. Take Track B if all six are already routine, whether because you use a screen reader regularly or because you have done accessibility testing before. List which track you picked at the top of your assignment submission.
Track A: learn the tool
Screen reader users are expert users. For example, advanced screen reader users will listen to speech at high rates, navigate by heading and landmark instead of reading from the top, and use keyboard shortcuts. The goal of this exercise is to get familiar enough with screen readers to test with them and build design intuition for screen reader users. This exercise can’t replicate the expertise that comes from relying on a screen reader every day, so that’s why co-design with disabled people is still very important.
1. Work through your screen reader’s built-in tutorial and practice on your own afterward.
- VoiceOver (macOS). Go to System Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver and click Open VoiceOver Tutorial.
- NVDA (Windows). NVDA has no official tutorial app. Instead, work through the WebAIM guide.
2. Complete three tasks. Pick a site or app you use regularly and choose three tasks you have done before. For example, adding an item to a cart and reaching checkout, finding and RSVPing to an event, changing a privacy setting, or looking up a grade in Canvas.
Run each task with the screen reader and without the visual display. For example, turn your monitor off, turn the brightness down, or otherwise avoid the display.
3. Write about what happened. For each task, record what you were trying to do. If you got stuck, write what the screen reader was announcing and why it was confusing. Write about what you did to recover, and whether you finished your task.
What to submit for Track A
- Command reference. Describe 3 important keyboard commands you learned and what they do.
- Task reflections. Describe what tasks you chose, and include your reflections as described above.
- Course reflection, 400–600 words. Draw connections between your experience in this assignment and specific readings from the class.
Track B: comparative testing
Screen readers differ from each other, even for someone already fluent with one screen reader.
1. Pick a screen reader setup you do not normally use. For example, if you usually use VoiceOver, try NVDA. If you are familiar with all major screen readers, try a less common one, like Windows Narrator, TalkBack on Android, Orca on Linux, etc.
2. Complete three tasks. Pick a site or app you use regularly and choose three tasks you have done before. For example, adding an item to a cart and reaching checkout, finding and RSVPing to an event, changing a privacy setting, or looking up a grade in Canvas.
Run each task on both your usual screen reader and the screen reader you’re less familiar with.
3. Write about what happened. For each task, where did the two announce different things, expose different controls, or need different commands? Were you able to finish your task on both?
What to submit for Track B
- Screen reader setup. Describe which screen reader you usually use, and which unfamiliar one you tried. Describe any settings you changed.
- Task reflections. Describe what tasks you chose, and include your reflections as described above.
- Course reflection, 400–600 words. Draw connections between your experience in this assignment and specific readings from the class.
Rubric
This assignment is worth 10 points, divided across the criteria below. Each criterion is graded from its full point value (excellent) down to 0 (not present), with partial credit in between.
| Criterion | Points | Track A | Track B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | 1 | Track is declared; three commands are described accurately, with what each one does | Track is declared; both screen readers are named, along with any settings changed |
| Tasks | 3 | Three tasks on a familiar site, each run with the screen reader and without the visual display | Three tasks on a familiar site, each run on both the usual and the unfamiliar screen reader |
| Task reflections | 3 | Records what the screen reader announced, where it was confusing, what you did to recover, and whether you completed the task | Records where the two announced different things, exposed different controls, or needed different commands, and whether you completed the task on both |
| Course reflection | 3 | 400–600 words drawing connections to specific readings from the class | 400–600 words drawing connections to specific readings from the class |