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Re: WCAG 2.4.2 (page title) and native mobile apps

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Apr 18, 2020 4:45PM

On 18/04/2020 20:59, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:
> Hey gang
>
> One dilemma I've faced lately is outlining guideines for testing
> page/screen titles on native mobile apps.
> The concept of a page title is not as clearly defined for mobile apps
> and I find that screen readers don't use it as aggressively as they
> would on web (most of the time they do not automatically announce the
> screen title, sometimes they don't announce it at all).

And rather unhelpfully, WCAG2ICT just handwaves the whole thing
https://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/#navigation-mechanisms-title

> What would you recommend as guidelines for 2.4.2 as they relate to
> native mobile apps and what is your experience from user testing (if
> you have such).

In most of our testing, we've taken the approach of looking more
generally at the intent of the SC - helping users orient themselves/know
where they are within the context of the app ... seeing if there is
something that gives users an indication of which view/screen/etc they
may be in - taking into consideration standard patterns like top bars on
many native apps (where you often have the title of the current view
page with a "<" back control) or similar, as well as any standard ways
in which a screen/view can (depending on the OS) be given an explicit
name. But nothing as cut and dry as the <title> element on web documents.

Noting also that a lot of the benefits/scenarios outlined in the
understanding document for 2.4.2 really don't quite fit/apply to the act
of using a native app on mobile (generally not multitasking, focused
activity so less chance of "what if the user went away/switched between
apps/needs to know what page they're on when they return", the whole
thing about "site maps or lists of search results", etc).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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