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Re: [EXTERNAL] alert issue

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jul 3, 2018 6:56AM

Another option might be to remove the live region. Instead make the cost information available as part of the label for the choice. This probably would work better for people using magnification. Also, it might be more useful for all users when they do have a choice of which option to pick. I have seen a similar approach used some times on sites where you select a computer to purchase and then are provided with options to modify the base package.

To me, I am not sure if the issue the developer originally noticed when using aria-live="polite|assertive" was something that needed to be fixed. I am not sure how to explain this, but I will give it a try. When testing with a screen reader, there are a lot of issues you can uncover. Some of those issues are quite obvious--like a missing alt attribute on an img (image) element. Others have more to do with the perception of the tester. It can be tougher to determine which of those issues is an accessibility issue, might be an accessibility issue, or just is the nature of a non-visual interface. My own opinion is that any time information is not conveyed by the screen reader, it is definitely an accessibility issue. However, this seems to involve a delay of information being conveyed. If this live region isn't acting any different from any other live region with polite or assertive on it, I wouldn't consider it an issue--unless I had definite user testing to demonstrate that. Ho
wever, I would definitely consider it an accessibility issue in the situation where the role="alert" causes NVDA not to provide the label information at all.

As a side note--I am blind myself and use a screen reader. I don't even consider most of the testing I do with a screen reader to be equivalent to user testing--since most of the time I am supposed to be hyper-focused on finding all the accessibility issues with a page rather than just focusing on performing a task like most users do.

This isn't a criticism on the great advice you have already received, but is just intended as another perspective to the problem.

Thanks!
Tim