Screen reader accessibility of Spark IM

Hi there,

My organisation make the free NVDA screen reader, which is used by blind and low vision users around the world. We have a user who has just been offered a job, and one of the products the company use is Spark IM. Can anyone please advise what settings to recommend for Spark (or NVDA) for the best experience for him, please, or whether Spark is even accessible with screen readers?

Kind regards

Quentin.

Unfortunately, i don’t have any advice. The only thing i remember is this ticket about WE4Java https://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/SPARK-1468 which states that Spark’s message window is not compatible with it. I guess it might have the same issue with NVDA or other screen readers. If that company is not requiring to only use Spark, maybe that user can use some other XMPP client instead, which supports screen readers.

Thanks Wroot. I know NVDA works well with Miranda IM. Do you happen to know whether Miranda works with Spark?

Also, I’d definitely encourage you to download NVDA (it’s free) to test with - it’s hard enough for many blind users to get a foot in the door with employment, so if they do and find the software they need is inaccessible, it’s a real blow. We aim to make NVDA work with as wide range of programs as possible, so if you make something which works with NVDA, the good news is, it will also likely work with other screen readers without any extra work.

Miranda is an XMPP client as Spark, so it should work. Unless that company has some specific requirements to only use Spark. But maybe they can make an exception for this user.

Although i could try NVDA, I’m not a developer myself, so I won’t be able to do anything about it. And Spark is in a limbo for a while, no active developers working on it.

Ok, thanks I’ll pass that on. Re trying NVDA, sorry I saw the “Spark Maintainer” in your heading and thought you might have been a dev.

Yes, I’m the current maintainer, but just because nobody else cared to do this… But i mostly take care of forums, testing and releasing.