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Use of live regions for announcing additions and deleteions

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From: Robert Fentress
Date: May 15, 2015 1:50PM

Hope you folks can help me on this one.

*Scenario:*

- There is a rich internet application containing a list of items
- At the end of any item in the list is a button menu containing a
number of options for what to do with the item, one of which is to delete it
- At the top of the list is an "Add" button, which launches a dialog
containing a form. Filling out the form and hitting the "Save" button adds
an item to the list.

*Question:*

- Is it appropriate to alert users who are using a screen reader that
they have successfully added or deleted an item by using a live region?

*Justification:* A sighted user would immediately see that they had
succeeded in their task, because the list would update, but a blind user
would have to consciously scan the list to determine whether they had
succeeded. This all assumes that focus would go to an appropriate place,
such as to an item adjacent to the deleted item in the case of deletes, or
back to the "Add" button in the case of adding an item.

*Options:*

- Whether or not the live region should be visually hidden
- What the live region should say:
1. "Item successfully deleted" and "Item added" *or*
2. "Item successfully deleted. Focus moving to next item." and "Item
added" *or*
3. It could simply be a counter indicating how many items are in the
list, eg. "5 items". This option is nice, since it also works
for the live
filter search that is above the list, which automatically updates the
number of items displayed as the user types.
4. Some combination of the above.

Is any of this necessary or would success simply be assumed by the user,
and intrusive notifications to that effect would be distracting?

So, how about it folks? What do you think?

Thanks,
Rob

--
Robert Fentress
Senior Accessibility Solutions Designer
540.231.1255

Technology-enhanced Learning & Online Strategies
Assistive Technologies
1180 Torgersen Hall
620 Drillfield Drive (0434)
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061