1470779 - [a11y] History and Bookmarks sidebar containers have obscure label for accessibility

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

STR (with the NVDA screen reader):
1. Open firefox with the NVDA screen reader running.
2. Press control+h to open the History sidebar.
Expected: nVDA should report "History  grouping, search history  edit"
Actual: NVDA reports "chrome://browser/content/places/historySidebar.xul  grouping, Search history  edit"
Similar behaviour applies to the Bookmarks sidebar.

This occurs because the <page> element for these sidebars has nothing that would assign them an accessible label, so Gecko a11y falls back to the URL. This can be fixed using aria-label (assuming there isn't a more appropriate XUL mechanism for this that doesn't affect the visual presentation).

Originally reported in NVDA issue: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/7572

Comment 1

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

Attachment: Bug 1470779: label History and Bookmarks sidebar containers for accessibility.

Without this, accessibility reports the chrome:// URL of the page element as the label, which is ugly for screen reader users in particular.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/253278/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/253278/

Comment 2

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

I'm not entirely sure it is appropriate to use &historyButton.label; and &bookmarksButton.label; for this purpose. I guess it's possible those labels could be phrased as the action of opening the sidebar, rather than just its name. I was reluctant to unnecessarily add accessibility specific labels, though.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Comment on attachment 8988024 [details]
Bug 1470779: label History and Bookmarks sidebar containers for accessibility.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/253278/#review260372

thank you, I think it's fine to use these labels since the same are used for the Sidebar command select itself, and it's effectively what appears as a title to any user.

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/2110dad4d2ec
label History and Bookmarks sidebar containers for accessibility. r=mak

Comment 5

[Eliza Balazs [:ebalazs_]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/2110dad4d2ec