CMSgov
Autocomplete: Explore changing how results are announced to screen readers
Description
In recent testing with a screen reader user with a few products on healthcare.gov that use the autocomplete, they got blocked. The results didn't announce all the time, presumably because of the aria-live="polite" setting. Also, when. they did, it said something like 2 results found vs. something more specific like 2 zip codes found.
Updating this could lead to a better experience because it's more specific to the results being displayed instead of being generic.
Additional information [optional]
It doesn't look like this would be an easy enhancement. The announcement comes from third-party code.
- The instructions come from an aria-live area on the page. This comes from Downshift. Also, see geta11ystatusmessage. We should be able to alter that message to make it more specific, like Kristen mentions (2 zip codes found vs. 2 results found).
- It looks like we'd have to put a PR into Downshift, or find another way to change the message.
I wanted to explore the possibility of this, since it came from user testing.
Jira tickets WNMGWINSHOP-761 and FLH-334 have additional context.
@SparrowSpit would you mind weighing in on this when you have a chance?
I'm pretty sure this is related to WNMGDS-2364 which is trying to address the oddities in what's being announced.
Good call, @SparrowSpit. Since we have WNMGDS-924 to track the issue of specific language, and we passed accessibility testing on WNMGDS-2364, I'm going to go ahead and close this.