RE: search with autocomplete

Kelly,

In reviewing an autocomplete I’ve been working on, I notice the following behavior:

1. no search is done until three characters are entered.
2. When results are found, the first result has aria-selected=“true” and is highlighted visually.
3. an announcement is made via aria-live (polite):

“[Selected Option] of [TotalResults] is highlighted. Use the up and down arrow keys to navigate."

Would this be this ok or is it too disruptive to hear the total each time?

Peter
On Jun 16, 2021, 3:33 PM -0500, kelly@kellford.com <kelly@kellford.com>, wrote:
I too use these frequently and find them of immense value and am a screen reading user. The times I don't are more about the experience of an individual example the concept. For example, for me personally, being informed how many results after each character I type can be quite disruptive. What is better is to hear the default result after you enter a character. Communication of the total results should happen only after this in my view.

Kelly



-----Original Message-----
From: Léonie Watson <lwatson@tetralogical.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2021 3:13 PM
To: bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com>; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: search with autocomplete

I use them on a regular basis, and find them useful for exactly the same reasons a sighted person might - they help me find something when I don't have complete information, and/or they help me enter the thing I'm intrested in more quickly than typing might permit.



On 16/06/2021 20:50, bryan rasmussen wrote:
I was recently thinking about to make a search with autocomplete
solution work in relation to a screenreader and in the middle of doing
so I developed the rather jarring idea that I could think of no way in
which such a thing could ever be useful to a blind user of a
screenreader (although perhaps useful for a sighted user)

In my experience autocomplete works for me because while typing I can
with a bit of pattern recognition see that what I am looking for is
suddenly in the first few results and immediately select what I want.

Are there any studies of autocomplete solutions for blind users where
they actually say this was useful for us? Is there any blind user on
the list here who can say they have used an autocomplete solution that
helped them? If so, what were the best parts of that solution?

Thanks,
Bryan Rasmussen


--
Director @TetraLogical
https://tetralogical.com/