Alyssa Cheeseman talks about screen readers and false WCAG conformance claims

Alyssa says "sometimes accessibility is kind of still up in the air and a lot of corporate managers don't really understand that until a big bug happens and you lose customers because of it".
Thanks to Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode.
Transcript
Nic
Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. I just want to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and customer courses. You can learn more about how fable can work with you and your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alyssa Cheeseman. Hey, Alisa, how are you?
Alyssa
Not too bad? How's it going with you?
Nic
It's going good. I'm glad we connected. We didn't know each other before this. So it's going to be a fun show to get to know you and your experiences on the web a little bit.
Alyssa
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Nic
Let me start by asking you this, what's your disability or your impairment?
Alyssa
So I am actually considered legally blind. I do have some usable vision. But not of course, not enough to be able to drive. I also have a guide dog named Ruth, who has a yellow yellow Labrador Retriever. And she is amazing and always there. But overall, my condition is legal blindness with some residual vision.
Nic
Thank you. Service dogs are amazing. And I say this. I say this, as Winston, my mobility assistance dog is sleeping on my feet right now. So it's wonderful. However, we're not here to talk about service dogs, because so far, they haven't managed to help us on the web.
Alyssa
Yeah!
Nic
What would you say your greatest barrier or your greatest pet peeve when you're using the web is?
Alyssa
So my biggest pet peeve is that sometimes I hear about different products that are going to be implemented, especially if they're my company that I work for now. And I haven't even seen it yet. But they say that it's WCAG compliant. And whenever I get to the website, it's actually not. And the biggest fear that I have is when there's a bunch of unlabeled links and buttons, it makes it very challenging for screen reader users to be able to navigate. And I use the JAWS screen reader with a blue refreshable Braille display. And it makes it really hard if there's just a ton of unlabeled things and buttons.
Nic
So what I'm hearing is twofold, really first is unlabeled elements make it really difficult for you to perceive and understand what's on the page. But the other aspect of that is that these products are coming to you as being supposedly WCAG conformant. But they're not.
Alyssa
Right, exactly. Like there's some, there was one instance where we had launched a flagship product, and there was just a bunch of unlabeled buttons. And I test, I actually test our products for accessibility. But sometimes it gets to us and I go to test a product and before it gets to the other customer. And I see these bugs, and I'm just like, this is really crazy. Why didn't we see this new design before it even got to the public?
Nic
Yeah, that's... As an accessibility consultant myself, that is something I've been struggling with, on and off. It's, it seems like there's a big disconnect there. So what would you say your, your message for designers or developers would be? Is it related directly to that? Or is it something sideways?
Alyssa
Well, it's very similar to that is if you're testing for screen reader accessibility, you can't just hit Tab through the page. That's not just that's not going to get to where you need to be in terms of screen reader testing, you need to tab into the page as well as arrow down the page using arrow keys. That'll make it easier to know where things are located on the screen visually, and making sure that things are in the tab order because if you're just tabing you may not visually see that something isn't in the tab order. So it's really important to actually arrow through the page, as well as have when you're testing for screen reader accessibility.
Nic
Thank you for that. I was just talking with a QA tester last week who had logged a bug. And he said, I cannot tab through all the cells in a table. And I told them, why do you need to do that these cells are not interactive. And he says, well, screen reader users need to be able to tap to the content in a data table to be able to understand it and...
Alyssa
No
Nic
Yeah, nope, is exactly right.
Alyssa
That's not the case.
Nic
Nope
Alyssa
That is not the case. Because yes, there are table shortcut commands. But that's not necessarily tabbing through.
Nic
Yeah. Alyssa Cheeseman. Thank you very much for being a guest on the show this week.
Alyssa
Yeah, of course, I'm glad to be able to spread the word about accessibility and the fact that things definitely need to change from the top down because in just major corporations like the one I work in sometimes accessibility is kind of still up in the air and a lot of corporate managers don't really understand that until a big bug happens and you lose customers because of it.
Nic
That's a fantastic message to end the show on. Thank you, Alyssa. Have a good rest of your week.
Alyssa
Awesome. Thank you so much.