Accessibility of iWork for iCloud

By kevinchao89, 27 March, 2016

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi,
Has anyone tried iWork for iCloud? If so, are there tips/suggestions on VoiceOver interacting with KeyNote?
I was trying to review some slides, but only accessible way I found was to print to PDF then read in Preview...The UI to even accomplish this was not very intuitive.
Hope I am missing something obvious.
Some slides I was trying to preview using KeyNote for iCloud:
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/000ZnYO_wgYxbJSXMfJ938_yg#Apple_iWork_%26_MS_Office_Document_Accessibility_on_OS_X_and_iOS
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/000u6tS8xjkddUvJlb3MVKI6Q#Apple_Watch_Accessibility

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Comments

By Becca on Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 10:36

Hello. This website is a bit tricky. There is a tool bar at the top and one of the options is download a copy of this presentation. VO does not recognize the announcement that appears. I tried this on an iPhone and a a Mac. The Mac was more accessible. Maybe you should try to sign into your iCloud account if you have one. Sorry I wasn't much help. Happy Easter.

By Becca on Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 10:36

I tried Keynote on Safari on a Mac, and it needs some work. You can't edit a slide well. Vo does not say slide like in the Keynote app. Maybe try emailing the links to yourself both on an iPhone (if you have one) and the Mac. Sometimes, when my teachers email me a link to their presentations, there is an option on my iPhone to open in Keynote. Hope this helps. You should email Apple Accessibility and explain your findings. It is mostly accessible, but needs some work.

By kevinchao89 on Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 10:36

  1. PDF is how I ended up reading this, but process was not very straight forward or intuitive:
    1. Interact with toolbar > Print to PDF
    2. CMD-S to Save PDF to Downloads folder
    3. Read in Preview

Note: This worked fine, but required lots of steps, and lost the structure/formatting, so wasn’t able to effectively navigate using HTML navigation.

  1. Cannot read on iOS

    1. When opening link on iOS, it specifies that it’ll only work on Mac or PC.

  2. While step 1 works to get it it into read-only: the online collaboration is lost…

By Tyler on Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 10:36

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

From my testing, iWork for iCloud appears to be mostly inaccessible or at least not usable with Voiceover from a practical standpoint. I would recommend downloading your document to use with local iWork apps if possible, as they are much more accessible.

I have repeatedly written to accessibility@apple.com for over two years to no avail. I suspect it has something to do with Voiceover's handling of the iCloud website, which leaves wide ranging accessibility improvements to be desired.

HTH