I am improving the accessibility of my site and my screen reader (currently testing with JAWS 15) is providing default instructions for an HTML element for which I want to provide different instructions.
So far, I've been able to add aria-label="In order to foo, you need to bar" but before moving off the element, the screen reader is playing the default instructions, which are incorrect (i.e. "Press X key to do Y").
Any advice on preventing default markup element instructions from being read by screen readers?
If I understood your question correctly, what you're referring to is called a tutor message. For example, "Press Spacebar to activate this button".
You cannot change nor override those messages because they are a part of the screen reader itself. They are, however, most used by the beginners, and as a user gets acquainted with his/her screen reader and Windows in general, he/she will tend to turn these messages off.
For instructional text that is associated with a form element, you might want to use aria-label or aria-labelledby for the actually form field label and aria-describedby for instructional text.
WAI-ARIA 1.0 Authoring Practices provide a good description of what the appropriate uses are for aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby. [http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/#relations_labeling]
Related
I currently have a simple bit of markup on my site, and can't seem to get a screen reader to read it. Am I missing something?
<section aria-label="This is the text I want to be read "></section>
I've also tried:
<section aria-description="This is the text I want to be read "></section>
The section isn't tabbable as such as its not a link, not sure if that's connected to the problem, but my understanding of whether the screen reader should or should not be reading something is sketchy at best.
Screen reader in question, if it matters.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screen-reader/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn
Any help appreciated.
It might depend how you are navigating with the screen reader. Since the <section> is not a keyboard focusable element, I'm assuming you have some text content in it? Most screen readers will let you navigate to all elements on the page, including plain text, using the down arrow. The down arrow essentially walks the DOM. (It actually walks the accessibility tree but for now think of it as walking the DOM.)
If you can navigate to a focusable element before the <section> using the tab key, then you can start using the down arrow to get to the section.
With NVDA, I heard "This is the text I want to be read, region". Note that it's saying "region" because a <section> element has a default role of "region".
With JAWS, it did not read the aria-label, but that's because of the JAWS default verbosity settings which does not include regions. If you change your verbosity setting from the default "medium" to "high", then you will hear the section label when you arrow down to it. (Or you can configure your current verbosity setting to include regions.)
With JAWS, you can also navigate by landmarks. Since a <section> has a "region" role, and a region is a landmark, I can navigate by landmarks with JAWS using the R key and when I do that, I hear "This is the text I want to be read region", regardless of my verbosity setting.
So, as someone else posted, if you use a "standard" screen reader, the label will be read. If you use a lesser known screen reader, then it's hard to say what will happen.
Regarding aria-description, that's not production yet. It's part of the ARIA 1.3 specs which is still in draft form. The production ARIA 1.2 does not have aria-description so it's doubtful it will be read.
ACcording to ARIA specification, the <section> can perfectly have the aria-label attribute.
Most other HTML5 structural elements also allow aria-label because they are landmark regions.
So, conforming screen readers are supposed to read it, and, as far as I have tested, they indeed do.
Attribute aria-description is more recent than aria-label, so you should prefer aria-label in order to maximize the chances to have it read.
IN order to make good and relevant tests, I suggest you to use a true screen reader really used by users, rather than a browser extension that nobody use in the real life.
You may try one or more of the following, depending on your target systems and possibilities: (Non exhaustive list)
NVDA, Jaws and Supernova under windows
VoiceOver under MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
Talkback and VoiceAssistant under Android
NVDA, VoiceOver and Talkback are totally free, and VoiceOver is even always available out of the box without the need to install anything. So you really have no reason to don't try them out.
I am working on creating accessible help text for my form controls. I am planning to use aria-describedby to attach a accessible description to a field. This approach is discussed here
Although in my testing with ChromeVox extension and Windows 10 screen reader I have found out that aria-describedby is not announced, but it is rather well supported across browsers and screenreaders, so i am planning to use this approach.
Also this suggests that in some cases aria-describedby would be ignored or not work as expected but these cases are quite specific and i am generally ok with it.
aria-describedby content may not always be announced to users,
depending on their screen reader and navigation method. The attribute
is well supported, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things to
be aware of: aria-describedby content may not be announced by all
screen readers if navigating to a button, link, or form control with
the virtual cursor. JAWS specifically may not announce an element’s
description when using hot keys to navigate to certain elements. When
navigating by visited links, the description will not be announced.
However JAWS should announce descriptions when navigating by form
controls. JAWS 17 + IE won’t announce aria-describedby content when
tabbing to a link (newer version of JAWS have fixed this). IE11 won’t
announce the accessible name or description of a form control if the
title attribute is used in tandem with aria-describedby, and the
user is navigating by virtual cursor or form control hot key (F). Both
will be announced if using the Tab key. (IE11 had much bigger problems
with aria-describedby in the past.) TalkBack + Android Chrome won’t
announce any aria-describedby content of a modal dialog when
auto-focusing an element within that dialog. If a user has
descriptions or hint text turned off, any associated content won’t be
announced. Because of this, it’s vital that any content that is
necessary to the understanding of a UI be available by means other
than just aria-describedby.
I would like to understand if there are times when aria-describedby would not be announced automatically? The previous link phrasing seems to suggest that it is only going to be announced on request :
By using aria-describedby to reference the format of the field, this
information is made available to the users on request. That is, it is
not automatically displayed or read aloud. This makes sense if the
user has been informed of the format before, or when there are lots of
input fields with the same format, for example.
I don't get what it means by "on request". I believe that the default behavior is to announce the aria-describedby text after announcing the label and the input type.
The behavior of aria-describedby (like aria-label and aria-labeledby) is profoundly influenced by the role of the element where they appear.
As you may know screenreaders generally have two 'modes', and this is mostly determined by the role (or default semantics) of the content.
I have certainly had problems getting non-interactive elements announced, if they appear within interactive ("forms mode") content.
I have had good results using aria-describedby with modal content. (Put the attribute on the modal, and point at the text elements inside which you want announced when the modal opens.) But I suppose this is because there is an obvious moment where the screenreader is supposed to make those announcements: the moment when the modal opens.
In the case that the form (or other "forms mode" container) is always present on the page, you can usually read the non-interactive content using browse-mode key combinations such as "next heading" ("H" on NVDA and JAWS) or "next paragraph" ("P"). Check to see if these 'requests' are enough of a solution.
You might also experiment with the standard HTML elements fieldset and legend, whose purpose is providing a text description for groups of interactive elements.
Also consider treating the 'form' (or toolbar or whatever) as a single tab stop, and use arrow keys to navigate the components within. This way, when you give focus to the container, you should get an announcement of whatever is aria-describedby (or indeed aria-labeledby/aria-label)
If this isn't working for you, there are a couple of hacks you might try as a last resort:
Put tabindex="-1" on the element surrounding the text you want
announced, and then call focus() on that element at the appropriate
moment.
Copy the text into the textContent of an aria-live region
with javaScript at the appropriate moment.
Neither of these hacks are pretty, and might not suit you, if there is no 'appropriate moment'. (There's no equivalent of onfocus for browse mode). But with a little care, they can be made to work.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but usually screen reader navigation works by pressing the tab key, and usually you do not have (or need) tab-able images. Therefore, when is the alt text actually useful to the screen reader?
I have seen examples where the screen reader reads things when pointed/selected by mouse (mostly for testing), but I am not sure if that is a practical usage.
(Another scenario that comes to mind is link images where the alt text might be used for link description.)
Please help me with more info.
usually screenreader navigation works by pressing tab key
Typically only interactive items - links, buttons, and the like - are accessible by tabbing. But screenreader users need to be able to access all content on the page - not just the interactive items. Think of how useless a wikipedia page would be if you could only read out the links on it, and none of the content.
Screenreaders generally provide a set of tools and commands for navigating a web page:
The simplest approach is to move linearly through the page, item by item. This will cover everything: non-interactive items, interactive items, text, images, everything!
The user can also navigate between items of a similar type - from one list item to the next, or from one table to the next, or from one image to the next
There are generally also commands to navigate the heading structure (H1...H6).
Users can also search for specific text on the page, and then continue reading or exploring from there.
Check out this list of shortcuts for common screenreaders from accessibility specialists Deque.
Several screenreaders intercept and capture most keyboard input while the user is using them: if you're using JAWS or NVDA, for example, hitting the down arrow key causes the screenreader to move to the next item instead of causing the browser to scroll down. Likewise, hitting H causes the screenreader to move to the next heading - the browser never sees that keypress. (If you tab to an input field, however, the screenreaders will let the input go through.) On the Mac, the VoiceOver screenreader instead uses keyboard modifiers for its commands - or example, Control+Option+RightArrow moves to the next item.
Using a screenreader to navigate and read a page is perhaps a surprisingly interactive experience: you're not just listening to what the screenreader is reading out (or equivalent if using Braille), but using commands to tell it where to navigate next. A user might start off reading down through the initial part of the page to see what's there, then switch to heading navigation to see what the overall page structure is and find a specific section, then read through that item by item. If the user is familiar with a page, they might use the search command to find some well-known piece of text and jump straight there.
This isn't all that different than how sighted users might view a page: visually scanning the top level structure, reading the headings, and then reading a particular section. But whereas most sighted users take this process for granted, when using a screenreader, you have to do it manually.
Please correct me if i am wrong, but usually screenreader navigation works by pressing tab key, and usually you do not have (or need) tab-able images
Yes this is wrong.
WebAIM publish the list of shortcuts for NVDA or JAWS
The tab key is only used to "Navigate to Next form Control".
You have different shortcuts to read the text, and the alternative text will be spoken when reading an image.
I'm writing a blog post about the kbd element, and as part of that I'm trying to see if it actually helps in terms of accessibility, e.g. do any screen readers reckognise the kbd element or do anything with it?
I've tried googling around for an answer but turned up nothing (possibly attributed to how few people actually use this element?)
There does not seem to be any evidence of any particular handling of the kbd element in browsers, assistive software, or otherwise, except for the default rendering (which uses the browser’s default monospace).
It is difficult to image what any software could do with it, since it simply indicates that some text is presented as user input – it just represents it, without actually involving any user interaction. And the content can be just about anything. User input is often a command or a filename or other “computerish” expression, but it could equally well be in a natural language or a meaningless string (say, a password).
It would make sense if screen readers read the content marked up with kbd in a different tone/voice/speed/etc. (resp. announce it).
Otherwise it would not be (always/perfectly) clear what should be entered and what not.
Example where it would not be clear what exactly to type in:
<p><kbd>Say hi</kbd> to get an introduction.</p>
<!-- vs. -->
<p>Say <kbd>hi</kbd> to get an introduction.</p>
Example where it would not be clear that anything should be typed in at all:
<p>
<kbd>kill</kbd> to kill yourself, <kbd>kill <var>name</var></kbd> to kill the player named <var>name</var>
</p>
Example where it would not be clear if/which punctuation has to be entered and if keys have to be hold (+):
<p>To enable god mode, press <kbd>a+v!c</kbd>.</p>
<!-- vs. -->
<p>To enable god mode, press <kbd>a+v!c.</kbd></p>
<!-- vs. -->
<p>To enable god mode, press <kbd>a</kbd>+<kbd>v!c</kbd>.</p>
If any screen readers ship with kbd support enabled by default is another question, that probably can't be answered for sure, because there are many screen readers that are available only for one language resp. in one country (let alone all the different versions).
But I guess most advanced screen readers can be configured to "do anything" with kbd. I know that many screen reader users share snippets/configs on mailing lists to improve their experiences. I wouldn't be surprised if some also added some support for kbd.
Besides from accessibility for screen reader users, kbd can help other users, too, of course. I've often looked at the source to figure out what exactly should be entered when kbd didn't get any special styling.
The following HTML is inserted by the jQuery Grid plugin:
<td role="gridcell" style="" aria-describedby="list_createdBy">Sam</td>
What is the meaning of the 'aria-describedby' property?
This is described in the aria specification. It gives the id of an element that provides some additional information about the current element that some users might need.
Here below is an example of how you could use the aria-describedby property. It is used when you have a text that has information about the element. Aria-describedby must be the same as the id of the text that describes it.
First name: <input aria-describedby="name" type="text">
<em id="name">Your first name must be correct.</em>
At the first glance I'd say aria-describedby is likely to be ignored here because it's defined on <td>. Most browsers and screen readers will ignore aria-describedby information when set on element which is not interactive (focusable).
But the specific example a bit more complex due to role="gridcell" which overrides the semantics of <td> and therefore the provided example is valid if it follows the ARIA specification for gridcell. It's a custom component.
Generally speaking the attribute aria-describedby provides the screen reader with the additional information to be announced along the content of the element (not the only but the most common use-case).
For example instead of only "Logout" the screen reader will announce "Logout, John Doe":
Logged-in as <span id="user">John Doe</span>.
<a aria-describedby="user" href="/logout">Logout</a>
Or example with a tooltip (Hint: Javascript part is missing here):
<button type="button" aria-describedby="my-tooltip">Snipping Tool</button>
<div hidden id="my-tooltip" role="tooltip">
It can take still screenshots of an open window,
rectangular areas, a free-form area,
or the entire screen.
</div>
Or example with a form element, another common use-case:
<form ...>
<label for="my-name">Full name</label>
<input aria-describedby="my-name-desc" id="my-name" type="text"/>
<p id="my-name-desc">
Please tell us your full name.
</p>
</form>
The example above will announce both <label> and the additional description (defined by aria-describedby) immediately when a user focuses the input field. Not only that it eliminates a need to read the surroundings to be able to understand what is expected to enter but also reading all elements other than form controls when inside of the <form> might be more complex for a screen reader user. It's a different experience then reading the rest of the page. Because keyboard events can either interact with screen readers or with form controls, but hardly with both in the same time. Not to mention that screen readers offer bunch of useful keyboard shortcuts for example pressing "H" will jump to a next heading but obviously not when <input> field is focused. Then "H" will be entered into <input>.
About ARIA:
ARIA is commonly used to improve the accessibility for screen readers (not only but mostly atm.).
Using ARIA does not necessarily make things better! Easily ARIA can lead to significantly worse accessibility if not implemented and tested properly. Don't use ARIA just to have some "cool things in the code" which you don't fully understand. Sadly too often ARIA implementations introduce more issues than solutions in terms of accessibility. This is rather common since sighted users and developers are less likely to put extra effort in extensive testing with screen readers while on the other hand ARIA specs and validators are currently far from perfect and even confusing in some cases. On top of that each browser and screen reader implement the ARIA support non-uniformly causing the major inconsistencies in the behavior. Often it's better idea to avoid ARIA completely when it's not clear exactly what it does, how it behaves and it won't be tested intensively with all screen readers and browsers (or at least the most common combinations). Disclaimer: My intention is not to disgrace ARIA but rather its bad ARIA implementations. In fact it's not so uncommon that HTML5 don't offer any other alternatives where implementing ARIA would bring significant benefits for the accessibility e.g. aria-hidden or aria-expanded. But only if implemented and tested properly!
About aria-describedby
Provides the additional information along the content of the element
Works as expected on focusable elements (e.g. button, input, a). Mostly useless on other elements ("mostly" there are exceptions)
IE 11 is a bit tricky. Sometimes it's ignored. It might make a difference if implemented on a or button as well if referenced element is hidden (display:none), its position (is the inner element referenced?) or if it has tabindex="-1" or role (e.g. role="none") on it etc. Make sure to test all screen readers
Might behave differently if a screen reader is used in a focus mode (TAB key) or virtual mode (reading the content with ARROW keys)
Both Firefox and Internet Explorer respect aria-describedby only in focus mode. As such, it does not make sense to add it to non-focusable elements. From: ADG
While NVDA announces descriptions right away, JAWS sometimes prompts to manually press JAWS+Alt+R to announce it. From: ADG
If referenced element is hidden it's not searchable with Ctrl+F (which is a common way the users like to navigate the website to quickly find what they look for). From: ADG
The only case where we truly recommend the usage of aria-describedby, is to attach additional information to interactive elements (e.g. to relate visible information e.g. to form controls). From: ADG
Good idea: Using combination of aria-describedby (on a form control) and role="alert" (on a SPAN) for a form control error. From: W3.org
Basically,
aria-describedby property is used to attach descriptive information to one or more HTML tags through the use of an id reference list( an id reference list contains one or more unique HTML tag ids).
aria-describedby property is very similar to aria-labelledby property( a label which describes the essence of a HTML tag) but aria-describedby property provides more information about a HTML tag that user might need.
The properties aria-describedby and aria-labelledby are mainly useful to the users who use assistive technologies like a screen reader.
For reference:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_aria-describedby_attribute
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/ARIA1.html