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JoVE Science Education

Summary

Accessiblü conducted a high-level accessibility evaluation of the JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) Science Education platform to assess its usability for individuals with disabilities. The review was conducted using the JAWS 2025 screen reader on Windows 11 with Google Chrome, keyboard-only navigation, and manual inspection, supplemented by automated scanning with axe DevTools, for conformance with select WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria. 

Key Findings 

JoVE demonstrates a number of thoughtful design choices that support accessibility providing a good foundation on which to build further improvements. That said, the evaluation identified several opportunity areas across all four pages that may create challenges for users relying on screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technologies.

Positive Aspects:

  • Presence of skip-to-content functionality through an accessibility overlay, 
  • Meaningful landmark regions (banner, navigation, main, contentinfo),
  • functional transcript section on video pages, and a 
  • well-structured footer with organized link groupings. These features . 

Critical Issues: The most significant barriers center on keyboard interaction patterns, focus management after dynamic content updates, and ARIA implementation in the navigation and filter components. Addressing these areas would meaningfully improve the experience for students, researchers, and library patrons who rely on assistive technologies to access JoVE's video science content. 

These challenges, while addressable, do create meaningful friction for users with disabilities. A researcher using a screen reader, for instance, would need significantly more effort to refine a search using date range filters, apply product type filters, or control video playback than a sighted mouse user performing the same task. 

Top 3 Issues Identified 

  1. Navigation Keyboard Traps and Focus Management

    • Brief Description: The main navigation menus (Research, Education, Business) expand via arrow keys without user intent, creating partial keyboard traps.
    • Impact: Users must press Escape to exit, but the menu re-expands as soon as focus moves back. After closing the user menu, focus is also lost to the top of the page. This pattern affects every page on the platform. 
    •  WCAG Success Criteria: 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap (A), 2.4.3 Focus Order (AA) 

  2. Missing Status Messages for Dynamic Content Updates 

    • Brief Description: When search results update (after filtering, sorting, or running a new search), JAWS receives no programmatic notification. 
    • Impact: Focus returns to the top of the page rather than to the first result, and no live region announces the update. The AI chat feature similarly provides no indication when a response is being generated or when it is ready. 
    • WCAG Success Criteria: 4.1.3 Status Messages (AA), 2.4.3 Focus Order (AA) 

  3. Filter Controls Lack Accessible Names and State 

    • Brief Description: The search filter panel contains multiple unlabeled or miscoded controls 
    • Impact: Expand/collapse buttons announce only as generic 'button' with no state, date range sliders have no accessible names, icon graphics preceding filter section headings are exposed to screen readers as unnamed graphics, and the All/With Video and Content/Products toggle pairs function as radio groups but are coded as plain buttons without selected state. 
    • WCAG success Criteria: 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A), 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (AA) 

Disabilities Impacted 

Blind and Low-Vision Users 

  • Issues: Screen reader users encounter keyboard traps in the main navigation menus, missing state announcements on filter controls and menus, focus loss after dynamic content updates, unlabeled buttons throughout the search and video pages, and ARIA implementation errors that cause menus to announce incorrectly or not at all. 
  • Impact: These barriers create significant inefficiencies for blind users. Key tasks - searching for content, refining results with filters, adjusting video playback - require substantially more effort than for sighted users, and in some cases (like accessing the AI chat response or controlling a paused video) the content is effectively inaccessible. 

Users with Motor Disabilities 

  • Issues: Navigation menus that expand on arrow key press create unintended activation for keyboard users. Video player controls become inaccessible when the video is paused. Multiple unlabeled buttons require users to activate them to discover their function. 
  • Impact: Users who rely on keyboard-only navigation will find the navigation menus challenging to bypass and may inadvertently expand menus while attempting to reach main content. The video player's inaccessible-when-paused control set is particularly limiting for users who pause frequently to process content. 

Neurodiverse Users 

  • Issues: The absence of status messages during search updates and AI response generation means users receive no feedback on whether their actions are working. Heading hierarchy anomalies on the landing page (H2 appearing before H1) create structural confusion. Multiple buttons labeled identically or unlabeled add cognitive load when navigating by element. 
  • Impact: Users with cognitive disabilities, attention differences, or those who rely on predictable page structure may find the inconsistent feedback and navigation patterns disorienting. Clear status messages and consistent heading hierarchy are particularly valuable for users who benefit from explicit confirmation that actions have been registered. 

Users with Hearing Impairments 

  • Issues: Video content lacks audio description tracks, though transcripts are available. The language selection button for caption tracks has insufficient color contrast (foreground #ffffff on background #137cec yields a ratio of approximately 4.09:1, below the 4.5:1 minimum). 
  • Impact: Deaf and hard-of-hearing users can access transcripts, which is a meaningful positive feature. However, the absence of audio descriptions means users with combined hearing and vision impairments cannot fully access the visual information in JoVE's science demonstrations.