I’m hoping to use the Search extension in a project and notice it’s market as not accessible. I’d like to explain to my client the specific reason why it’s not accessible - is it do do with reading order and screen reader use? This is so they can make an informed decision on whether we use the feature or not.
Hi @chantelle , broadly speaking Search works quite well with assistive technologies, but we haven’t marked it as accessible for two main reasons:
- When you search for a term the list of results is not announced to a screen reader user - you can navigate through the list and each item is read out and can be selected but nothing happens initially to alert the user that results have been returned.
- The term that is searched for is highlighted each time it appears in the results - there is only a visual indicator of this highlight, so a screen reader user wouldn’t know the terms are being highlighted, and there may be colour contrast issues with the highlight and the text its overlaid on.
My personal opinion is neither of these issue make search unusable in an accessible course, but the experience could be better and the items above would probably get flagged in an accessibility audit.
We may be able to make this extension accessible in the coming months, but I can’t give any concrete guarantees at this stage. I hope this helps.
Cheers-Sam
1 Like
Thank you Sam, this is really helpful! Personally, I’d find this type of detail really helpful where an interaction is marked as not accessible, so you can make informed decisions about their use.
Good to know about the possibility for the extension becoming fully accessible as well!
Thanks, Chantelle
1 Like