WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: expectations role=group / role=region

for

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Apr 4, 2022 11:16AM


" I'm finding that screen reader announcements for the region role are disappearing, especially in Jaws, even if the region has an accessible name."

I forget when this was introduced in JAWS, but I filed a bug against this a long time ago. Basically, named regions are not reliably announced unless "Virtual Cursor Verbosity" is set to "High", which is "Medium" by default. Personally I find this extremely annoying.

You can see this by visiting:
https://whatsock.com/Templates/Accordions/Internal/index.htm

On the page in FF or Chrome with JAWS running:
1. Press Insert+V to open the Verbosity dialog.
2. On the option "Virtual Cursor Verbosity", press Spacebar to toggle this to "High" and press Enter.

Now you will hear named regions.

I still think this is a major issue for accessible intuitive navigation that you have to enable accessibility because it is not provided by default.



Bryan Garaventa
Principal Accessibility Architect
Level Access, Inc.
<EMAIL REMOVED>
415.624.2709 (o)
www.LevelAccess.com

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Sunday, April 3, 2022 4:39 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] expectations role=group / role=region

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.


You should, all landmark role should communicate the region boundries (as well as role="group"), this is why landmark roles are occasionally a better choice than headings that only mark the start of a section of content, (especially if the following section of content does not start with a heading).
I'm finding that screen reader announcements for the region role are disappearing, especially in Jaws, even if the region has an accessible name.
I have to say I find this concerning.


On 4/2/22, Sonja Weckenmann < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am aware of the semantic difference between role="region" and
> role="group".
>
> Assuming the roles are both used with an accessible name:
> In terms of role="group" assistive technology should convey the
> boundaries of the group (in reading mode).
>
> What about role="region"?
> I wonder if I can claim the same expectation for role="region" (in
> reading mode)? Or is the use of role="region" not meant to meet such
> expectations?
>
> Thanks a lot
> Sonja
>
>
>
> --
> Sonja Weckenmann
> IAAP Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS)
>
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.