Screen Readers and Matching Activities

Hi there,

Matching activities might present some confusion for screen reader users as it reads “Select Dot Dot Dot” without any context (see attached video).

The screen reader doesn’t seem to read the question, only “select dot dot dot” for each item. Is it possible to change it so that the screen reader reads the questions? Then perhaps have an aria label field to explain the “select” button and the answer options available?

Thanks,
Melissa

Hi @Melissa I’m not quite sure what’s going on there as the ‘select’ control is linked to the question text via its aria-labelledby attribute:

And with Voiceover/Chrome as I navigate through it reads like this:

  • item question text
  • Select…
  • You are currently on a selectable text
  • item question text, select…, list box pop-up collapsed, combo box
  • you are currently on a combox box. Type text or, to display a list of choices, press Control-Option-Space

If your screenreader is not reading out the question text, could it be because you are using tab to navigate? The tab key only navigates between interactive elements and skips all non-interactive content.

There will be another key/combination of keys to navigate all content, unfortunately I can’t remember off-hand what it is for Jaws - @Sam_Cook_Evolve_LQA can you help?

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Hi @Melissa it looks like you are using the tab key to navigate the page while using JAWS - this will only ever move from interactive element to interactive element - it wont read all the text content on the page. The usual method I use to navigate through an evolve page with JAWS is just the arrow down key - this navigates through everything. You have to perform other key presses to interact with buttons, drop downs etc - I think once you land on a select in a Matching question its usually enter or space bar then the arrow keys to move between the options, and enter to select. It’s a good idea to familarise yourself with the (many!) keyboard controls you can use for navigation in JAWS: https://www.freedomscientific.com/training/jaws/hotkeys/
Hope this helps - cheers-Sam

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