If you use a screen reader, there’s a good chance you’ve used a web technology known as a live region. The short version of what this technology does is that it allows web developers to have screen readers automatically read certain text. This might be automatic reading of chat messages in a chat environment, notification about the number of characters you’ve entered in an edit box as you type each character and much more.
While live regions are not the only technology that can cause this automatic reading, the vast majority of what you’ve likely experienced does come as part of a live region.
Microsoft is seeking feedback on live regions in some of their work with the W3C standards organization. This is a modified version of a note I received from a former colleague at Microsoft. Whether you are a web developer, assistive technology maker or end user, consider sharing your feedback on live regions.
As part of the effort, the group wants to make sure we are solving the challenges with the current Aria Live Regions experience considering feedback from developers and end users.
We have created two research surveys designed to help the community understand the landscape of notifications from the developer and screen reader user perspective. If you are so inclined, we are hoping that you can provide this feedback through one or both surveys below. Discussing aria live regions is clearly an advanced topic so don’t feel bad if you don’t feel confident responding. From a user level, we are just talking about the notifications you receive while on the web. Screen readers will typically just speak these notifications and place them as a flash message on your braille display. Even if you don’t understand the technical aspects of live regions, but have feedback as a consumer of these notifications, what works, what doesn’t, etc., please provide this feedback in the technical screen reader feedback form below.
These surveys are open to anyone—feel free to forward around to people that might be interested. Your feedback is critical to helping us land something that resonates with developers and screen reader users.
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