1987632 - Screen Readers will not read out loud the Weather and Stories "Expanded" Context menu state

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Found in

• Nightly 144.0a1 (2025-09-09)

Affected versions

• Nightly 144.0a1 (2025-09-09)
• Beta 143
• Release 142

Affected platforms

• All

Preconditions
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.system.showWeather -true
Enable Screen readers.

Steps to reproduce

1. Reach a new tab page.
2. Reach the Weather Context menu and open it using the Enter or Space keys.
3. Reach a Recommended Stories section context menu and open it with the Enter or Space Keys.

Expected result

• Screen Readers should read the Weather Widgets Context menu Expanded state
  Screen readers should read "Popular today" or Other Sections name + context menu Expanded state

Actual result

• The opened state for the Weather or Stories sections context menus is not read out loud by Screen readers.

This seems to be an older issue but I will tie it to our New Daily Briefing and Weather Widgets placement feature since these will get more exposure now. We can remove it from blocking this Meta bug if it should be treated separately.

Regression range
Not a regression.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:thecount, could you have a look please?

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Comment 2

[Anna Yeddi [:ayeddi]]

Attachment: Recommended Stories 3dot menu is expanded and browser dev tools DOM inspector is showing the button missing aria-expanded and aria-haspopup, and title with the story section alone (Popular Today)

still present in Fx 146.0a1 - example from the section-context-menu button: https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/rev/251eeab1c468eb1557269952c712580e4cc16e29/browser/extensions/newtab/content-src/components/DiscoveryStreamComponents/SectionContextMenu/SectionContextMenu.jsx#44-50.

Missing:

1. aria-expanded=false to indicate its collapsed state (to be dynamically updated to true when the menu is opened) and
2. aria-haspopup=menu to indicate that the menu would open - with this change most screen readers would announce "has popup" or "menu", thus the title won't need to be updated.

Comment 3

[Anna Yeddi [:ayeddi]]

Attachment: Weather Widget 3dot menu is expanded and browser dev tools Accessibility inspector is showing the button missing expanded state and name is generic (open menu)

The Weather widget's button has aria-haspopup property in Fx 146, but it is missing aria-expanded and both the title and aria-label are generic "Open Menu".

I also want to add that the button "weatherButtonContextMenu" includes the entire LinkMenu container and its menu items in it - I am surprised this markup nesting seems to be working with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on MacOS, TBH. But there is no guarantee that all assistive technology would be able to cope with this unexpected markup pattern. Moving the LinkMenu from the button to make them siblings instead is highly recommended.