Accessible conversations

Accessible conversations assist respondents by improving visibility and permitting assistive technology to “read” and “answer” for customers who, for example, have blindness, low vision, and limited movement. When using Medallia Conversations the two areas that impact accessibility are text and images.

Warning: On a Web page images have alternative text that screen readers can "read" to explain the image to visually impaired respondents. There is no corresponding mechanism for text and messaging applications. As such, when designing a conversation, use text to convey important content because concepts conveyed by image-only are not accessible.

Screen readers and many mobile devices read text and convert it to speech that gets played to the respondent. When designing a conversation, consider how the text will sound when read by these mechanisms. See Testing text on iOS, below for one way to hear the text.

Images pose a significant challenge for visually impaired respondents. Color and contrast can impact people with moderately low-vision or color-blindness. See "Color and contrast" in the Medallia Experience Cloud documentation for detailed information about how surveys deal with this — the same basic information applies to conversation images.

Some devices have the ability to evaluate an image and attempt to describe the image with speech. If you do include images, try to pick ones that are simple and easily interpretable by these mechanisms. See Testing image-interpretation on iOS, below for one way to hear the description.

For more information and best practices about accessibility guidelines, see Accessibility.

Testing text on iOS

Note: These steps are for iOS 11.4. Other versions might be different.
iOS devices have built-in mechanisms for reading text. To test a conversation using iOS text-to-speech:
  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap the General tab.
  3. Scroll down and tap the Accessibility tab.

  4. Tap the Speech tab.

  5. Turn on the Speak Selection option.
  6. (Optional) adjust the rate of speech.

To hear text- to-speech, select the text to listen to (you might have to tap on the selection first), and tap on Speak.

Testing image-interpretation on iOS

Note: These steps are for iOS 11.4. Other versions might be different.
Warning: Turning on VoiceOver changes the navigation gestures for selecting and activating objects on the screen. Consult the iOS documentation before turning this on for the first time.

iOS devices have built-in mechanisms for navigating and describing the images on screen. To test the description of an image using VoiceOver:

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Tap the General tab.
  3. Scroll down and tap the Accessibility tab.
  4. Turn on the VoiceOver option.
  5. (Optional) adjust the rate of speech.

  6. Navigate to the image to interpret.

  7. Three-finger tap the image in the conversation to hear the description. If VoiceOver can identify the image, it will say something like "An unknown person", "Image may contain one or more persons", or "Image may contain a cat."