Web²Access

Results for CLEAR RIA

Description

CLEAR provides a suite of web applications designed for language teachers. Tools include:

• An embeddable audio dropbox which students can use to deposit their recordings.
• A 'conversations' area where students can asynchronously answer questions they have been set.
• SMILE, a tool that allows teachers to create online language-learning and practise exercises.
• ViewPoint, a video-sharing portal similar to YouTube, which allows the creation of subtitles.
• A questions and answers section, which will be available soon

Accessibility Testing Results

It was surprising to see a type of Captcha used for registering to a university based service as it was not readable in a text based browser although it did zoom and the plain text forms were keyboard accessible. Although the site itself did not show any audio etc as it is just a toolbox - this is part of the system along with text type collaboration, mashups including videos. It was hard to find examples but everything was edited and played in Flash so not always keyboard accessible. Documentation was in, what appeared to be, accessible PDFs but there were no alternatives.

#	Test	Score	Summary
1	Login, Signup and Other Forms Accessible		Good registration form with clear labelling but sadly ending with a captcha. The normal login form has no labels so a screen reader user will have go down slowly to catch text output rather than use tab links.
2	Image ALT Attributes		The developer has not felt any of the images were important enough to include alt descriptions and has correctly add speech marks within the image tag so as not to waste the screen readers time.
3	Link Target Definitions		This site features a few ambiguous links which cannot be identified or distinguished by a screenreader.
4	Frame Titles and Layout		No frames or iframes, which can be disorientating for screen-readers, are used in the design.
5	Removal of Stylesheet		The page is still understandable and functional when it is viewed as a linear document, with no styles.
6	Audio/Video Features		The media is recorded by students as podcasts and it is possible to add text transcripts for uploading.
7	Video/animations - audio descriptions		The service offers the chance to record audio files for podcasts - the recorder is a Flash component and may not be keyboard accessible in some browsers. It is possible to add text transcripts for uploading.
8	Appropriate use of Tables		Tables are not used for the design of this website.
9	Tab Orderings Correct and Logical		Tab ordering can be fairly illogical - keyboard users may find it takes longer to explore the page.
10	Page Functionality with Keyboard		Some non-critical components require the use of a pointing device. These are Flash components. Many of the tools, however, are built using JavaScript.
11	Accessibility of Text Editors		Text editor is not accessible with the screenreader or keyboard.
12	Appropriate Feedback with Forms		Feedback from forms is adequate although spacing on the home page having logged-in requires scrolling which is not immediately obvious. Some formats have changed and there are largely blank pages with few instructions.
13	Contrast and Colour Check		No contrast problems noticed at all.
14	Page Integrity when Zooming		The website maintains the layout and usability of all critical areas perfectly when zoomed.
15	Text size, style, blinking elements and Readability		The majority of text on the site is size ten, which is readable but may be uncomfortable for some.

Disability-Tailored Results

The following table shows how well the product performs for people with disabilities, as listed in the Disabilities section.

Percentages do not indicate how much of a site is accessible. They indicate the average figure of test results relevant to each disability. Select a disability to see which tests are relevant to it.

Activities you can do with CLEAR RIA

• Group Discussion
• Video Sharing
• Q&A
• Annotating Multimedia
• Digital Audio Recording and Sharing
• Virtual Classroom