w3c/core-aam

Name and description change events clarification

scottaohara opened this issue · 3 comments

I was asked whether it was spec'd anywhere what should happen for if an accessible name changes. I pointed to this spec since the name change (and description change) events are talked about here... but apparently I misremembered how detailed they were/weren't spec'd.

Looking at this more, one could argue that core aam actually only says a name or description change event SHOULD occur for if an aria-label/labelledby or aria-describedby/description are changed.... but not necessarily if other naming mechanisms (from content, or from title attribute) are changed.

Does this need to be clarified here? Does it need to be called out in accName or the other host-language AAMs? Should this really be just a 'should', re:

User agents MUST notify assistive technology of state changes as defined in the table below, SHOULD notify assistive technology of property changes if the accessibility API defines a change event for the property…

Clarification would be good. Taking this multi-function button demo as an example, it uses a hidden live region to announce the change in accessible name. Testing with VoiceOver, Edge and Firefox announce both the change in accessible name and the live region, resulting in a double announcement (Preparing Preparing, Yay Sandwich Yay Sandwich), whereas Safari only announces the live region.

Discussed today during new issue triage: w3c/aria#2144

I volunteered to do some work to try to understand the current status of browser implementations, but I won't be able to get to it for a bit.

If you have a test case at hand, I can run at it.

If you don't have a test case at hand, I can make one. And then run at it, of course.