WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: [External] :Search result notifications - Screen readers

for

From: Don Mauck
Date: Feb 18, 2022 12:35PM

Glen, you echo much of what I think as well. It's just good to have another opinion as I think after a while, people here me say it so much that my message might get a bit stale.
Great input.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2022 12:31 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [External] : Re: [WebAIM] Search result notifications - Screen readers

From a UX perspective, I think it's a great idea to update the page with a notification about updated results. If that's done, then it absolutely has to be available to assistive technology via WCAG 4.1.3.

However, if there is not an update, then there's nothing to announce to assistive technology either. A sighted user might notice that the page updates (if the update is within view) so they have a little advantage in that situation. It would be nice if that same visual cue was conveyed to all users, but even sighted users might miss it. If they're not watching the page, they might not see the update. If the page is scrolled and the update happens elsewhere, they might not see it. I would consider that a bad UX design and not a WCAG failure.

Typically, if you have a page where you can filter items, whether by checking boxes or typing in fields, the page usually updates and there's a message telling you how many results there are. That's an easy situation that the updated results number must be announced. But if the page updates and no result count is updated, is that a failure? It kind of depends on your definition of failure. It might not be a WCAG failure (there isn't a status message to announce) but it feels like a UX failure. But you could also argue that the structure and relationships on the page updated as a result of filtering and that new information was not conveyed and thus a
1.3.1 failure.

If I were testing a page in the latter category, I might note a UX issue saying it'd be nice if there was a message noting a count of the filtered results and that that message should be available to assistive technology.


On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 11:58 AM Don Mauck < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hello -
> I've a question for Screen reader users of which I am one myself, I
> would like other users perspective.
> When searches are done and results appear underneath the filed, that
> suggestions, records or values, (These searches will populate as you
> type), would you expect to get a notification that records were found?
> Conversely, a notification of "nothing found"?
> > > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://list.webaim.org/__;!!ACWV5N9M2RV99h
> Q!b2hiDGYeFqo-qo_91Iw4hp3KYXB7kRGNpgg0g6TfVKOP3wcJhyuxdMdL5kskKz8$
> List archives at
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://webaim.org/discussion/archives__;!!
> ACWV5N9M2RV99hQ!b2hiDGYeFqo-qo_91Iw4hp3KYXB7kRGNpgg0g6TfVKOP3wcJhyuxdM
> dLEVaSqfk$ >