Re: Question on TITLE element and LIVE regions

Hi Bryan,

> One question from what you said though, that aria-live wasn't required.
>
> The original email said:
>
>> A developer asked me if you put a LIVE region on the TITLE element.
> So how would you define a live region without aria-live in this case?

My point is that since accessibility APIs support a name-changed event, 
an author doesn't need to use a live region in this case. I'm not saying 
that it's possible to create a live region without using aria-live; I'm 
saying I wouldn't use a live region here at all, with qualifications.

The qualifications are whether (1) all AAPIs provide the name-changed 
event, (2) all browsers implement the event, and (3) ATs listen for it.

Also, it's doubtful that adding aria-live to a TITLE element creates a 
live region.  With respect to the browser user interface, the TITLE 
element is used as the window title, or the label on a browser tab.  
Does a window title or browser tab constitute a live region?

And, as both of us discovered, the TITLE element is not mapped to an 
accessible object in the a11y tree, but is used for the accessible name 
of the document object.  Thus, the only candidate for a live region here 
is the accessible document object.  That's not right; the whole document 
is not a live region simply because its title/name changes.

> ... it doesn't look like this works as being supported by screen readers at the moment though, so no feedback is conveyed even if the title text changes. I can file a bug against this. I've tried this in JAWS, but cannot test using NVDA at the moment, so confirmation would be appreciated.

I checked NVDA and Orca with FireFox.  With NVDA, the name change is not 
announced as they happen, but when focus is placed on the browser tab, 
it correctly speaks the current label.

With Orca, even though (1) the name-changed event is emitted, (2) the 
name is changing in the accessibility tree, and (3) the browser tab's 
label changes, Orca speaks the initial title, even when focus is placed 
on the tab.

Now, this may be due to the screen readers' configuration -- is there is 
a user setting for asking for changes in names/titles? I'll file a bug 
against Orca to see where that leads.

There is a related FireFox bugzilla, where the NVDA team requested that 
FireFox emit a description-changed event when the accessible description 
changes [1].  It's clear from the comments that NVDA is aware of the 
name-changed event, but that doesn't explain if/how NVDA uses it.    
Also, the bugzilla references an NVDA ticket that you filed [2] in this 
regard.  Small world :-).

Finally, with respect to Jon's original email, the scenario might be 
conceived as a change in status.  There is an aria "status" role that is 
a type of live region.  A solution might be to include status text near 
where the page content changes, and update the status text to indicate 
what changed.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=991969
[2] http://community.nvda-project.org/ticket/4047

-- 
;;;;joseph.

'Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"'
            - G. Bernhardt -

Received on Thursday, 25 September 2014 16:05:50 UTC