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Re: Activating controls with hidden accessible names using speech recognition

for

From: _mallory
Date: Feb 9, 2016 1:41AM

I was discussing icons and icons+labels with my team. The Design group
really didn't want text next to icons. Lord knows why.

However I recently purchased my first smart phone, a Nokia. They have
icons+text, BUT as a user you can choose whether or not you gets just
icons (you have more free screen room) or also text, with a single control
per menu group.

Of course, that control itself has no text (lawlz), however all menu groups
have that same control icon and basically allows text to slide up next
to its icons.

I can see websites simply offering, as some applications do, a 1-button
option to show the text (or hide it, depending on the website's default),
allowing people like me who can't make heads or tails of icons (I often
hit F12 just to see if either a class name or another name or hidden
text is available to tell me what the thing will do) or people like speech
users be able to always have text available, while graphics people can
still show a pretty icon-only interface to CEOs and clients.

_mallory

On Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 12:24:39AM -0500, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:
> Robert Fentress wrote:
>
> >I'm curious about the accessibility for speech recognition software users of controls whose accessible name is not visible.
>
> Robert,
>
> Assuming the accessible name is properly associated with ARIA, NaturallySpeaking allows the user to dictate the accessible name. However, the user needs to know what the accessible name *is*. With very few exceptions (a magnifying glass, a shopping cart, a gear, or a question mark) it's almost impossible for the user to even guess.
>
> Now, of course, best practice is always to label icons (<https://www.nngroup.com/articles/icon-usability/>) because able-bodied users also find sites difficult to navigate without text labels. But current design trends sadly have little to do with evidence-based usability. So in order to make the icons easily usable by Dragon users, the site needs to find some way to expose textual labels (without relying on hover based effects such as flyout menus or title attributes).
>
>
> >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.
>
> I'm not positive, but I believe Dragon does partial matches in that case. However, if the text is "read more" and the aria-label is "find more information about Foo", that would be a terrible plan.
>
> >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?
>
> Well, I would, but that's because pretty much all user testing ever shows that users will navigate your site more effectively with a combination of icon + text label.
>
> Deborah Kaplan
> > > >