1906691 - The Select Provider combobox in the Settings UI AI Chatbot Integration section is not programmatically labelled

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: Machine Learning, defect)

Description

[Anna Yeddi [:ayeddi]]

Attachment: NVDA output for the Select provider programmatically unlabelled combobox in the Settings

Found in

• Nightly 129.0a1

Affected versions

• Nightly 129.0a1 (2024-07-01)

Affected platforms

• All

Preconditions

• Enable Screen Readers.

Steps to reproduce

1. Reach about:preferences#experimental page.
2. Navigate to the AI Chatbot Integration section and press Tab key
3. Observe the screen reader announcement for the (selected) AI provider combobox.

Expected result

• A meaningful accessible name that is correlates with the functionality of the button should be read out loud by screen readers alongside the intro/pre-selected option and the combobox role and state, i.e. Select provider label making the NVDA announcement, for example, Select provider, combo box, {Choose one}, collapsed.
  • It is also beneficial for the disclosure on agreeing with the provider's terms of use and privacy policy to be announced for this control too. I.e. making the NVDA announcement, for example, Choose a chatbot, combo box, {Choose one}, collapsed, When you choose a chatbot, you agree to the provider's terms of use and privacy policy.

Actual result

• There is no label being read out loud by a screen reader for the Select provider combobox - they only announce the current selection (the intro option Choose one) which is not the accessible name (it does not describe what exactly this combobox does and it is not consistent when making the selection from the list of options too), i.e. NVDA announces it as combo box, {ChatGPT}, collapsed
• Also, the disclosure that is an important part of making the decision about selecting a provider, is not being announced in relation to the combobox. Since the selection is automatically activated (meaning there is no Submit button to finalize the selection), users would have no chance to review the disclosure before making this selection, because the disclosure is placed after the combobox and it is not expected for a user to read all the page's content and then come back for the selection.

Regression range
Not a regression.

** Accessibility triage **
This is an access-S2 issue that makes this specific feature nearly inaccessible: while the on-screen text Choose a chatbot is provided on-screen, it is not programmatically associated with the combobox. The same applies to the disclosure for the terms of use and a privacy policy of the provider that would be accepted right when the combobox option is chosen. It would be hard for users with assistive technology to operate the UI since it is not clear what is the purpose of this control and the privacy repercussions that it would bring, unless they review some of the rest of the content of the page.

** Remediation Note **
We could add aria-labelledby to this combobox element that would be set to the id of its implicit (on-screen) label Choose a chatbot as well as the aria-describedby that would be set to the id of the (on-screen) disclosure text - these two would provide an accessible, clear indication to the control of its purpose and implicit repercussions.

Comment 1

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: Bug 1906691 - The Select Provider combobox in the Settings UI AI Chatbot Integration section is not programmatically labelled

Use xul control and aria attributes for provider menulist.

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e70fc6dc39c6
The Select Provider combobox in the Settings UI AI Chatbot Integration section is not programmatically labelled r=settings-reviewers,Gijs

Comment 3

[tszentpeteri]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e70fc6dc39c6

Comment 4

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Verified as fixed in our latest Nightly build 130.0a1 (2024-07-21)