Open Bug 1574044 Opened 5 years ago Updated 1 year ago

Notify screen readers when transitioning to a new screen in the new SPA

Categories

(DevTools :: about:debugging, enhancement, P2)

Product:
DevTools
Component:
about:debugging
Platform:
Desktop
All
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: MarcoZ, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: access)

This is a result from a direct screen reader demo I gave Ola in Berlin on August 13.

With the NVDA screen reader on Windows and Firefox, perform these steps:

  1. Go to about:debugging.
    • Notice that the screen reader will speak the new context, e. g. the title, and also the first items when they appear.
  2. Tab to the Link that says to debug a mobile device. In my case, it had to download the USB bits first, since I had never done that before.
    • Result: The new state is not announced after pressing Enter.
  3. Now, connect a mobile device and allow it to USB debug.
    • Result: The page change that indicates which device(s) are available is not announced to screen reader.
  4. By hand, find your device and hit "Connect".
    • Result: Connected state and the resulting page change are not announced to screen reader. All this happens silently, and I need to actively look for changes to happen.
  5. Once connected to a browser on your mobile, find the service workers and hit "Start" on one that isn't yet started.
    • Result: The change is not announced to screen readers.

This is a set of common scenarios for single page applications, like about:debugging is now. The MDN rewrite faced a similar issue and solved it this way by adding a screen-reader-only visible live region that spoke of new statuses, and also managing focus for each transition to go to a specific element so that it would force screen readers to recognize that something has just happened.

Also, Marcy Sutton recently did extensive research on different routing techniques for SPAs where the above technique was also mentioned as a preferred method for screen reader users.

Summary: Noify screen readers when transitioning to a new screen in the new SPA → Notify screen readers when transitioning to a new screen in the new SPA

Thanks for describing the flow in such details!

Blocks: 1510947
Priority: -- → P2
Severity: normal → S3
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