Autocomplete does not work with VoiceOver

[grom358]

Mac OSX 10.9.5 + VoiceOver + Safari (also chrome 39 and firefox 34 were tested).

Using the autocomplete demo ​http://jqueryui.com/resources/demos/autocomplete/default.html and tying ja results in the following being heard:

• 2 results are available, use up and down arrow keys to navigate.
• ja

Press down arrow

• v
• Java
• Java

Press down arrow

• S
• JavaScript
• JavaScript

So from that test case I think it reads out the first letter of selection that different to what is already in the textbox. Then it reads out what was selected. Then it reads out what is now in the textbox.

[tj.vantoll]

I can recreate the options being read twice, but not the single letters being read. I'm on OS X 10.10.1. Any idea whether a screen reader is supposed to read the selection and the contents of the textbox in this scenario? Personally I'm not sure what the user's expectation is here, but I don't think it's odd to read both.

[grom358]

Google search is a good example in my opinion, it reads the selected option and thats it.

I have started to mimic it here ​http://grom.zeminvaders.net/autocomplete-aria . From what I have gathered it seems aria-activedescendant on the input element stops it reading out the selected option twice. (Note my example is not complete yet as it doesn't tell you that there are list of autocomplete items to choose from).

I attempted to modify jQuery UI Autocomplete but its using aria live regions. Which don't work at all for me in Firefox 34 + VoiceOver. Chrome behaves the same as Safari.

Also in google search and my demo I've used role="listbox" and role="option" and this adds it saying blue text (1 of 4).. So you get an indication where you are in the list of options.

[Scott González]

We've gone down this road before. Please look through the history of the code to see why we've made the changes that we did. Obviously UA + AT support may have improved over time, so it's worth testing proper implementations again.

[grom358]

Replying to scott.gonzalez:

We've gone down this road before. Please look through the history of the code to see why we've made the changes that we did. Obviously UA + AT support may have improved over time, so it's worth testing proper implementations again.

Can you clarify what you mean by testing proper implementations again? I am testing using VoiceOver on Mac OS X 10.9.5.

[Scott González]

Proper implementation meaning going back to what the ARIA spec and guidelines say instead of devolving to live region hacks.