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Re: Use of live regions for announcing additions and deleteions

for

From: Lynn Holdsworth
Date: May 15, 2015 2:46PM

Hi Rob,

As a screenreader user, I personally prefer the shortest message
possible that gives me enough information to know what happened. "Item
added" and "Item deleted" would work for me.

Making the live region invisible may cause it not to be read by
screenreaders on mobile devices.

KR, Lynn

On 15/05/2015, Robert Fentress < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> 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
> > > > >