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Duo v2 almost a disaster with screen readers!

thoeg
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Duo v2 almost a disaster with screen readers!

Hi,

The following problems will make no sense for most users here, but for a few users, blind people using a screen reader this is a terrible situation!

I have looked for a very quiet and not to expensive nas, mainly to backup my music server, but also for other tasks for some time.
after giving up on the Duo v 1 because of the noise, I bought a Readynas Duo v2, a week ago.

It seemed to meet my requirements, at least in theory.
But when the unit arrived and I installed the Windows raidar program, I got a terrible surprise.
After the first one or two installer screens nothing worked. My Windows screen reader could only read the title bar nothing else! The used installer is for some reason 100 percent inaccessible for Windows Screen readers!
Part of this problem can be that Java is used and that it is coded in a way that does not support the Java Access bridge used to communicate information from Java to Windows screen readers.
On Macs the Voiceover screen reader at least in this case works better with the way java is used in the raidar program for Macs.

I then tried the Mac version, on my own Mac Mini running 10.7.4 it refused to install int the default folder, not really giving a reason why the folder could not be used.
I have another Macbook Pro running 10.7.2 and on this machine the installer worked, and I was able to discover my unit.

Now everything seemed ok, the dashboard being a html interface would work, well so I thought, but again I was disappointed.
Well not at all, or partly, but not in any usual way way.

It works a little less worse using Firefox than Ie9, but still many features seem to be totally inaccessible.
During the initial setup I was able to create a new password, supply my mail address for alerts, later on change the workgroup name, but I have not been able to change the time to my local timezone.
Until now I have been able to create a new share, install Transmission, and see the general information about the status of the unit.

Both the navigation bar, and the status bar, are almost impossible to use. I can find the text for some of the icons or what the manual refers to as buttons on the navigation bar. In html terms this hasnothing to do with buttons, wich means that my screen reader only display the text, but it looks like regular text not a control.
After trying a lot of things i found out that by pressing the spacebar I could at least get into the first configuration screen. The status bar however until now seems totally unaccessible.

It took a long time to get this far, and I would not with the current Raidar for Windows and dashboard advice any screen reader user to even consider buying a readynas!

I hope some of these issues can be fixed! With the Duo up and running for me the most important issue is to get a better Dashboard interface, either buy making the current interface comply more with html while still retaining an attractive visual look, or if possible maybe by coding an alternative more accessible html interface.

Claus
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StephenB
Guru

Re: Duo v2 almost a disaster with screen readers!

Your experience sounds very frustrating. I hope Netgear can fix these issues for you.
Message 2 of 2
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