Accessibility feature not yet working properly on macos (VoiceOver)

[sebkur]

I'm trying out the accessibility feature on macos. I've read here that they should be somewhat working there. I went to system preferences, accessibility and enabled VoiceOver. Usually when selecting UI elements such as entering any text input etc. this makes a bounding box appear around the element and generates some voice output on the speaker about that element. What I experience with compose is that the first UI element on screen gets read out aloud, but it is not possible to get VoiceOver to read out anything about other UI elements.

Here's a screenshot of how VoiceOver highlights the top left widget in the widgets gallery:

[sebkur]

[sebkur]

I can get VoiceOver to tell me stuff about other elements, but only by modifying the source code and making some different widget the first one on the screen. For example when I create a text input as first element, VoiceOver tells me something about that text field.

I'm wondering: what did you test accessibility with when implementing it for Compose? Something else than VoiceOver that ships with macOS?

[sebkur]

@elioqoshi

[VeselovAlex]

Hi, @sebkur
Try to navigate with Control+Option+Up/Down Arrow, and follow the VoiceOver hints, e.g.

Screen.Recording.2022-02-03.at.16.50.04.mov

Also you can use Accessibility Inspector for debugging, it is shipped with Xcode

[elioqoshi]

@VeselovAlex Thanks for the reply! This indeed works, although the focus order is different from what happens when navigating via Tab/Tab+Shift just like anyone would do on a website. How come the classic navigation with tab control is not possible?

[VeselovAlex]

Hi, @elioqoshi ! Seems that tab navigation works properly in master branch

Screen.Recording.2022-02-04.at.16.10.43.mov

[elioqoshi]

@VeselovAlex Yeah I got that. What I am saying is that VoiceOver doesn't work when navigating via Tab.

[sebkur]

yes, or for moving focus to a specific widget such as a TextField for example by clicking it. I think that should also make the accessibility software like VoiceOver pick up that this widget now has the focus and make it read out some text about that. I think probably the accessibility feature and the focus management should be linked somehow?

[VeselovAlex]

Tab navigation should work in 1.1.0-rc1

[okushnikov]

Please check the following ticket on YouTrack for follow-ups to this issue. GitHub issues will be closed in the coming weeks.