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Thread: chrome's devtools accessibility tree - where's the accessible description?

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From: glen walker
Date: Fri, May 15 2020 1:18PM
Subject: chrome's devtools accessibility tree - where's the accessible description?
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Perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious but I don't see the accessible
description in chrome's devtools accessibility tree.

Viewing the accessibility tree is a nice feature of devtools. You can see
ARIA attributes, role, and other interesting stuff.

In the "Computed Properties" section, it shows the accessible name and
where the accessible name comes from. It pairs nicely with the "Accessible
Name and Description Computation" spec (
https://www.w3.org/TR/accname-1.1/#step2) so you can see if the name came
from aria-labelledby or aria-label or a <label> element or from content.

The "Accessible Name and Description Computation" spec, as the name
implies, also talks about how the accessible description is calculated.
However, the accessible description is not displayed in the "Computed
Properties" section of devtools.

Oversight or am I missing something?

(In case you haven't used the accessibility tree before, or aren't aware of
it, when you inspect an element in devtools, in the panel that usually
shows the styles for the element you're inspecting, there's an
"Accessibility" tab after "Computed" and "Event Listeners". Depending on
how big your browser window is, the "Accessibility" tab might be hidden
under the double right chevron icon, which is announced as "more tabs, menu
button". See
https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/accessibility/reference#computed
)

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Fri, May 15 2020 1:59PM
Subject: Re: chrome's devtools accessibility tree - where's the accessible description?
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For me at least, the description shows - but only when there is an
actual description. For instance, a link with a title="..." attribute,
or with an aria-describedby="..." pointing somewhere, it then a
"Description: ..." in the "Computed Properties" (and, in the case of
aria-describedby, an additional "Described by: ..." reference as well,
pointing to the element that provides the description).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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From: glen walker
Date: Fri, May 15 2020 2:49PM
Subject: Re: chrome's devtools accessibility tree - where's the accessible description?
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Found the problem, thanks. NVDA was announcing the element and then it
sounded like the description was read after the accessible name, but that
was just a trick of the ears and how the text was formatted. The
description that I thought I heard was actually part of the accessible name
so technically there was no description so nothing to show in the
accessibility tree. It's obvious now after the fact but I was too close to
it before and needed someone to knock my head.

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 2:00 PM Patrick H. Lauke < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> For me at least, the description shows - but only when there is an
> actual description. For instance, a link with a title="..." attribute,
> or with an aria-describedby="..." pointing somewhere, it then a
> "Description: ..." in the "Computed Properties" (and, in the case of
> aria-describedby, an additional "Described by: ..." reference as well,
> pointing to the element that provides the description).
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
>

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Sat, May 16 2020 3:31AM
Subject: Re: chrome's devtools accessibility tree - where's the accessible description?
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No worries, we all need a knock on the head from time to time.
Thanks for pointing tihs out I had nearly forgotten and I am writing
an accessible name guidance for our new development teams.

On 5/15/20, glen walker < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Found the problem, thanks. NVDA was announcing the element and then it
> sounded like the description was read after the accessible name, but that
> was just a trick of the ears and how the text was formatted. The
> description that I thought I heard was actually part of the accessible name
> so technically there was no description so nothing to show in the
> accessibility tree. It's obvious now after the fact but I was too close to
> it before and needed someone to knock my head.
>
> On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 2:00 PM Patrick H. Lauke < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
>> For me at least, the description shows - but only when there is an
>> actual description. For instance, a link with a title="..." attribute,
>> or with an aria-describedby="..." pointing somewhere, it then a
>> "Description: ..." in the "Computed Properties" (and, in the case of
>> aria-describedby, an additional "Described by: ..." reference as well,
>> pointing to the element that provides the description).
>>
>> P
>> --
>> Patrick H. Lauke
>>
>>
> > > > >


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