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Re: JAWS, modals, and aria-labelledby

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From: Moore,Michael (HHSC)
Date: Jul 29, 2015 7:26AM

Sean,

You are probably being limited by the default line length. This can be adjusted but most users will leave it at the default. You will also see this same effect with alt text, and with pdf tool tips. It definitely impacts labelledby but I would need to test to verify that it is also a factor for content identified through describedby as suggested by Bryan. My best guess would be that describedby is also limited. Unfortunately I am still waiting for JAWS on my new workstation so I cannot test just yet.

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)
(512) 574-0091 (Cell)

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Sean Keegan
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 10:31 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] JAWS, modals, and aria-labelledby

Hello,

I am working with developers on a modal in which JAWS will only read a set amount of characters when the modal is first triggered. Because the modal information is considered critical, the developers created separate DIVs with id values and then added aria-labelledby to the parent DIV with the respective id values. As a result, the entire content is presented as the accessible "name" of that modal.

Both NVDA and ChromeVox read all the content in the parent DIV when the modal is first triggered and VoiceOver reads all paragraph elements (it skips any non-paragraph element). JAWS, however, only reads the first 180 characters (approximately) of the modal and then jumps to the focused element.

I suspect that JAWS is limiting what is considered to be the accessible name of the modal when it is first triggered. The entire modal can be navigated and read with the virtual cursor, but the accessible name as defined by the aria-labelledby attributes is truncated to a certain number of characters when the modal is first triggered.

Has anyone had this experience with JAWS such that it will only read a certain amount of content set by multiple aria-labelledby values?

This is happening for JAWS 16 in IE 10 and Firefox 39.

Take care,
Sean