Testing aria-live
support
What is the current support of aria-live
regions, is it support by anything? Let’s find out!
For this test we’ll use these three testpages:
- Case 1: ARIA Live Region
- Case 2: ARIA Live Region: Atomic
- Case 3: ARIA Authoring Practices’ alert example
Table of contents
Test Results
The results of the tests are listed in the test result table.
TL;DR: well supported in Chrome with JAWS, Narrator with Edge, Orca with Firefox, and TalkBack with Chrome.
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Safari (macOS) | Pass | Fail | Pass | Case 2: reads as Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox: 5, <atomic content> |
Safari (iOS) | Fail | Pass | Pass |
Case 1: current commands are interrupted by the polite live region, how rude. Case 3: impressed that VoiceOver reads all five different languages correctly! |
Chrome | Fail | Fail | Pass |
Case 1: VoiceOver reads the live region in between paragraphs which is confusing. Case 2: reads as Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox: 5, <atomic content> |
Firefox | Fail | Fail | Fail | Firefox includes basic support for VoiceOver, very basic. |
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome | Pass | Pass | Pass | |
Firefox | Fail | Fail | Pass | Having a hard time getting JAWS to work with Firefox. The first two cases aren’t read at all. |
Edge | Fail | Fail | Fail | No text is read in any of the test cases. |
Edge Chromium | Pass | Pass | Fail | Case 3: after the button is activated you hear Alert. But the content is not spoken. |
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome | Fail | Pass | Pass | Case 1: Current speech is interrupted to announce live region. |
Firefox | Fail | Pass | Pass | Case 1: Sometimes the current speech is interrupted to announce live region. |
Edge | Fail | Fail | Fail | No text is read in any of the test cases. |
Edge Chromium | Pass | Pass | Fail | Case 3: NVDA has issues with this page. Results are random with the alert (not) being read. |
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome | Pass | Pass | Fail | Case 3: after the button is activated you hear Alert. But the content is not spoken. |
Firefox | Fail | Fail | Pass | Case 1 & 2: No text is read. |
Edge | Pass | Pass | Pass | Keeps reading live regions on pages in other tabs than the current one. |
Edge Chromium | Fail | Fail | Pass |
Case 1: When the live region updates the virtual cursor is placed at the top of the page.
Narrator then starts reading the page from the top untill being reset again. Case 2: When the live region updates Narrator announces groupbut nothing else. |
Edge (Mobile) | Pass | Fail | Pass |
Case 2: The live region content is read twice.
Initially it’s announced as Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox 5. After that it’s announced correctly. Seems like Narrator takes the content as the live regions label. |
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Firefox | Pass | Pass | Pass | Keeps reading live regions on pages in other tabs than the current one. |
Chromium | Not supported |
Browser | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome (Android) | Pass | Pass | Pass |
Test method
For consistent results this is how each test case was tested.
Case 1: polite live region
Load the page and use a command to read the entire page.
Case 2: atomic live region
Load the page, stop speech, and wait for the live region to be announced.
Case 3: alert
Navigated to the trigger alert
button with either tab or swipes. Activated the button and waited for the screen reader to announce the alert.
Expected results
These are the expected results for each case. If these aren’t met the test is considered a fail.
Case 1: polite Live Region
The updated live region content is spoken after any other commands.
Case 2: Atomic
The changed text is read in the correct order. In the test case the score for the Tampa Bay Rays is updated. Therefore the expected result is: Tampa Bay Rays: <changed content> Boston Red Sox 5
Case 3: Alert
The alert is read as it appears. Note: Japanese and Korean text not being read isn’t counted as a fail. This depends on your installed language packs.
Software versions used
These tests were performed on Monday the 3rd of February of 2020. These software versions were used:
Operating Systems
- macOS 10.14.6
- iOS 13.3
- Windows 10 1909 x64
- Windows Phone 10 1706
- Ubuntu 18.04.4
- Android 10
Assistive Technologies
- VoiceOver (whichever is included with their OS version)
- JAWS 2020.1912.11 ILM
- NVDA 2019.2.1
- Narrator (whichever is included with the OS version)
- Orca 3.28.0
- TalkBack (whichever is included with the OS version)
Browsers
- Firefox 72.0.2
- Chrome/Chromium 79.0.3945.130
- Safari 13.0.5 (macOS)
- Safari whatever the version is that is installed on iOS 13.3
- Edge 44.18362.449.0