Re: [orca-list] Accessing Gmail (was Re: form field structural navigation)

["Srinivas Annam" <annams google com>]

Hi Joanie,

Sorry, I haven't caught up to some of my mail. Thanks to Will for pointing it out.

On 4/24/07, Joanmarie Diggs < joanmarie diggs gmail com> wrote:

Hi Krishnakant.

> but when I move with the tab key I never here the form field lables
> like to:,  cc: and bcc: when I am actually landind in those fields.
> same effect with the new insert tab.

This is what I was talking about in terms of there being two issues with
respect to form field navigation.  This would be an excellent example of
issue 2.

The Gmail site does not use labels.  They merely place the text that is
serving as the label in a table cell next to the table cell that
contains the entry.  This places browsers such as Firefox and screen
readers such as Orca in the position of having to guess what the entry's
label is.  As I mentioned in an earlier list message, implementing this
guesswork is on both team's plates but such things take time.  Plus,
guesswork is just that.  We might guess wrong and speak the wrong label.
Therefore....

Yes, I do agree that the guesswork can be error prone, but in most cases those that are using the guesswork seem to do a pretty good job. Of course, no guess work is really the best way to go, and yes that means using labels whereever necessary.

Srinivas, if you're listening.... :-)  It would be awesome if Gmail (and
for that matter all of the Google forms) started using labels.  For
instance:

<label for=""><input id="cc" value="" type=text size=40 class=i>

Should cause Orca (and for that matter all screen readers) to correctly
speak the label automatically.  Any chance that could get added to the
Google Accessibility Team's to-do list?

Yes, I will add this to my to-do list for gmail.

> but when I pressed the h of hello, orca announced "no more headings found".

I'll look at that further and see what I can figure out.  Thanks!
--Joanie

Btw, thank you for using gmail on the web. I know that lot of folks are used to their desktop clients, but using it on the web gives you the true power gmail - Search!

Srinivas