Per Mark Golbeck’s question RE: SAK-34558, I was able to test this issue on Sakai 23 using JAWS+Chrome. While its technically possible for screen reader users to record a student audio response, the placement of the audio widget on the page, and overall usability of its controls is somewhat clunky.

Basically, after pressing enter on the link to select/activate the “Click to record your answer…” option, the page refreshes, and you have to navigate all the way down to the bottom of the page, past the main Assessment area containing the question text and related information, through the footer contents, to where the “Audio Recorder” controls are displayed.

From there you are able to navigate onto the “Rec” (record) button and press enter to select/activate it, but when you do this, focus is unexpectedly jumping to the top of the page, and you have to navigate all the way back down to access the “Stop” button, or alternatively, you can just let the time run out and let the auto-save feature kick in.

Screen reader users are also able to access the “Play” button (to listen back to the recording) and the “Save and Close” button to return to the page where you can submit your Assessment for grading.

So in summary, screen reader users are able to get the audio widget to work, but it took some trial and error, and I could see it being a problem if they don’t have the patience to navigate all the way down to the bottom of the page, or if the Student isn’t provided unlimited attempts.

. does this affect the current version and do we need to bring it up at the core call?

This is one of a number of screen reader issues for questions.   could your testers please examine this to verify the priority of the issue for fixing?

I will add more testing steps and a quiz with an appropriate question for testing as a zip file.