Screen reader is inconsistent in announcing whether an item is selected or not selected

[Larissa]

When arrowing through the items in a simple listview, sometimes it will be announced by a screen reader (NVDA) whether the item is selected.  For example:

Aniseed Syrup not selected 3 of 4

Sometimes this information is not included in the feedback, for example:

Aniseed Syrup 3 of 4

It seems that feedback that an item is "selected" is never provided.  It also seems that I start getting the not selected feedback after an item is selected and then unselected (but not if the item has never been selected) It seems that the aria-selected attribute is set correctly in all cases, I'm just not getting the feedback I'm expecting.  I'm providing a link to a dojo that I put together.  Any idea why I'm not consistently getting feedback similar to:

Aniseed Syrup (not) selected 3 of 4

?

Thanks!

http://dojo.telerik.com/UcAmUf/3

[Stefan]

Hello Larissa,

I was able to observe different results depending on the used browser.

Could you please share with us on which browser did you tested it, as I tested it on Chrome and the results are as expected?

The results on Mozilla are indeed inconsistent.

Please have in mind that most of the screen readers are working consistently only on specific browsers.

Once we know the used browser I will continue investigating it.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Stefan
Telerik by Progress

 

 

[Larissa]

I am in Chrome using NVDA.  I have checked this in other browsers, and luckily we are only supporting Chrome, as the behavior is much better here than in other browsers.

As you can see in the dojo example, if an item is selected, it is never announced that the item is selected.  This is not our preference, however, this is not unique to kendo's listview.  Seems to be a quirk in NVDA and the user is probably used to it

However, we do need for it to announce "not selected".  This happens sometimes.  I can't figure out why it's announced sometimes but not others.  The aria-selected attribute seems to be set correctly

[Larissa]

I've modified the dojo slightly to give the list focus when the dialog opens.  Doing this, I get the exact same behavior that I see in my application at work -- nothing is selected.  The first list item reads Chai 1 of 4.  It should read Chai not selected 1 of 4.  Everything else reads correctly

 

http://dojo.telerik.com/UcAmUf/5

 

 

[Stefan]

Hello Larissa,

I did test the example and noticed the same behaviour.

Still, after inspecting the code, the Kendo UI widget has the correct aria attributes from the beginning and they are changed correctly after a new item is selected.

I can assume that this is caused by the NVDA reader itself as the widget behaviour and the aria attribute changes are correct.

Let me know if you need additional information on this matter.

Regards,
Stefan
Telerik by Progress