Closed Bug 1569931 Opened 5 years ago Closed 5 years ago

Make the What's New contents panel a document for easier browsing for screen readers

Categories

(Firefox :: Messaging System, enhancement)

Desktop
All
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED FIXED
Firefox 70
Tracking Status
firefox70 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: MarcoZ, Assigned: MarcoZ)

References

Details

(Keywords: access, Whiteboard: [skyline])

Attachments

(1 file)

When the What's New panel opens, the screen reader user experience currently is not very intuitive. Focus lands on the first "Learn more on our blog" button. And while that button is labeled, there is no context. The way the information is presented in this panel actually calls for it to be treated like a document rather than a dialog or the like.

To improve this, the div with ID "PanelUI-whatsNew-message-container" should get a role of "document". That way, a screen reader user can browse through the information with screen-reader-specific reading commands.

Ideally, we would also add tabindex="0" so it becomes focusable and thus the first focusable element inside the panel, but keyboard users might get confused if that grabbed focus instead of an interactive control. So adding the document role should suffice to improve the user experience here for screen reader users.

Note that this is different from what's being proposed in bug 1565159. What's suggested there should definitely be implemented alongside what this bug is proposing. For more reading on the difference in the way screen reader and sighted keyboard users interact with web content, see this article by Léonie Watson on the subject.

See Also: → 1565159

This way, screen reader users can more easily browse all content provided by the What's New sections. Otherwise, only the buttons would be read, and screen reader users would have to use cumbersome navigation techniques to get to the rest of the contents.

This patch adds an WAI-ARIA role "document" to the container, which only changes screen reader behavior, but has otherwise no effect on styling or browser behavior.

Assignee: nobody → mzehe
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED

Thanks! Do you have any suggestions for bug 1565159 as well?

Flags: needinfo?(mzehe)
Pushed by mzehe@mozilla.com:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/49a95b268768
Make the What's New contents panel a document for easier browsing for screen readers, r=andreio
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Target Milestone: --- → Firefox 70

(In reply to Andrei Oprea [:andreio] from comment #2)

Thanks! Do you have any suggestions for bug 1565159 as well?

Answered on that bug, removing NI.

Flags: needinfo?(mzehe)
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.

Attachment

General

Created:
Updated:
Size: