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Activating controls with hidden accessible names using speech recognition

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From: Robert Fentress
Date: Feb 7, 2016 2:23PM

Hi, all.

I'm curious about the accessibility for speech recognition software
users of controls whose accessible name is not visible. One example
is graphical buttons or links. Using Dragon, one could say "click
button" and be shown selection boxes for all buttons on the screen,
allowing you to choose the one you wanted. However, that seems like
an added burden when, if the name was visible, you could simply say
its name to click it. I only have access to Dragon 12.5, so I don't
know if they've come up with better solutions for situations like this
in later versions, but I'm wondering if having an option to display
hidden labels would assist users of this assistive technology.

Using graphical controls can be a way of making things less cluttered
and easier to grasp perhaps, but it seems to make things more
difficult than it should be for those using voice control.

Also, I'm wondering if it is recommended practice to try to avoid
having controls whose accessible name doesn't match what appears
visually to be its name. For instance, visibly, it might say "read
more", but its hidden name might be set to "read full entry for topic
1" using aria-label to disambiguate things for screen reader users.
In this instance, I could see a Dragon user saying "click read more"
and being confused when nothing happens.

Perhaps these are just examples of trade-offs where you need to use
your best judgement, but I wonder if there are recommendations or best
practices for things like this. You wouldn't ding someone for not
having visible labels or having visible labels that are different than
hidden labels, would you?

Thanks.

-Rob