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[users] General accessibility of Gemini browsers

Devin Prater r.d.t.prater at gmail.com

Wed Mar 10 17:27:49 GMT 2021

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Hi all. A few weeks ago, I launched a discussion about the accessibilityof Gemini browsers, particularly of preformatted blocks. Now, I havebegun exploring the general accessibility of browsers as a whole. ThingsI look at:

If the browser UI can be navigated and used: like the address bar,back/forward/tab buttons, and menu bar or menu popout button.

If the browser text can be read.

If the browser text exposes element types, like headings, links, blockquotes, ETC. mainly headings and links are important, everything else Ijust assume to be paragraphs.

If using a "normal" screen reader, like NVDA (Windows), Orca (Linux),VoiceOver (iOS), or TalkBack and similar (Android), whether or notnavigation keys, like "h" for heading, "k" for link ETC. works toquickly move throughout the page.

If preformatted blocks can be folded/hidden or made into one elementto reduce noise.

I don't know if there's anything else I should be looking at or testing,but Gemini browsers seem pretty simple thank goodness, so really thatseems to be all I need to look for.

Testing so far

So far, I've used Elpher, Elaho, and Ariane a bit. Until Ariane stoppedand needed to be closed. I've also used Dragon Stone, Crystalle, and afew other Linux apps. Mainly, I'll discuss the things I've seen doneright, and things that should be improved in browsers for accessibility.

Elpher

Elpher is the Emacs Gopher and Gemini client. It works well withEmacspeak, except headings aren't announced or spoken as such.Everything else works fine: I can use the URL Entry command, move "up" apage, add bookmarks, and so on. I can move by links with Tab, althoughthe link name isn't automatically spoken, like in EWW. However, sincelinks are all one on each line, I can have Emacspeak read the currentline to get the link name, and press Enter to open it. Emacspeak workswith packages using the Advise Emacs system of "scripting" functions.That's how EWW works so well with Emacspeak. The problems I have withElpher are small, and I can live with them. The link symbol of pointingarrows can be removed using Customize, leaving the link itself the onlything on the line.

Elaho

Elaho, I think, is one of the best clients for accessibility right now.Not only does it expose all element types, has textual labels for allbrowse_r UI elements, and gives the ability for VoiceOver to movethrough item types, it compacts preformatted blocks into an "image"label and only shows the Alt-text, if available._

_## Ariane_

Ariane is pretty new to me, but it works well. I can read the UI, andthe browser text. It even has the ability to hide preformatted blocks.But, it lacks one important part, labels for non-paragraph elements,like links and headings. I did turn on item type labels in its settings,but that didn't seem to work. That may be a bug or something, but itdoes help to know if something is a link or not. I'll have to keepworking with this one and see how far I can get with it. As I said, itcrashed on me last night, so I didn't get too far into it.

gemiNaut

GemiNaut is really great too. I can use the UI, headings and links arelabeled, I can read the text of a site just like a website, so screenreader navigation keys work. But, preformatted blocks aren't hidden, andI've not found a setting to do this in the browser. I'll have to lookand see if there have been any updates to it in the last few weeks,though. Otherwise, it works great!

Others

Chrystalle, as I remember from the last time I've tried it, was notusable at all. With DragonStone, I could read the text, but couldn'ttell what is a link or heading and what was plain text. I have yet tomess with many terminal clients, but this is just a spark to startdiscussion, I'll add more findings later on.

Notes that may be helpful to programmers

For programmers, if your framework has a browser system, like GTK webview or the Android web view, or iOS Safari thing you can embed in theapp, try that. Otherwise, you may have to just have a static text viewwith a toggle in the app settings to show ingo like "heading" or "link"and such. Also, don't be afraid to try your browser out with the screenreader built into your OS. For Linux, there's Orca, or gnome-orca as itmay be packaged. For Windows, there's Narrator already built intoWindows. And if you have Windows 10, it works well enough for testingreal applications. For Android, there's TalkBack, which is included inthe Android Accessibility Suite. For iOS, there's VoiceOver, included inevery iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch since the iPhone 3Gs, so you're sureto have it. Hopefully. :) And for MacOS, VoiceOver is built in there, too.

I hope this helps. :)

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