Bug 269026

Summary:	AX: Voiceover on the Mac does not properly support aria-activedescendant
Product:	WebKit	Reporter:	Bryan Garaventa <b>
Component:	Accessibility	Assignee:	Nobody <webkit-unassigned>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	Blocker	CC:	andresg_22, aroselli, jcraig, jesse.greenberg, webkit-bug-importer
Priority:	P2	Keywords:	InRadar
Version:	WebKit Nightly Build
Hardware:	Mac (Apple Silicon)
OS:	macOS 14
See Also:	https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167671

Description Bryan Garaventa 2024-02-08 16:09:36 PST

Voiceover on the Mac does not properly support aria-activedescendant to ensure accessibility for the blind.

This is related to the prior bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167671 Which was said to be resolved, however it is not.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Visit: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/examples/combobox-select-only/
2. Attempt to read the available options using the up/down arrow keys with Voiceover running.
3. Confirm that nothing is announced to convey the currently active option.

This is a critical stopper for blind Voiceover users, not just for the Combobox design pattern, but for all implementations that use aria-activedescendant to convey selection.

Comment 1 Radar WebKit Bug Importer 2024-02-08 16:10:11 PST

<rdar://problem/122590052>

Comment 2 jesse.greenberg 2024-06-21 13:16:48 PDT

We encountered this today - aria-activedescendent is broken. Tested on MacOS 14.5.

These examples do not work with Safari: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/examples/grid-combo/ and https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/examples/combobox-autocomplete-list/

Comment 3 Andres Gonzalez 2024-08-29 13:58:23 PDT

This problem is addressed in MacOs Sequoia 15. Please re-test with a recent build of MacOS 15.

Comment 4 James Craig 2024-08-30 15:31:08 PDT

Of note, macOS 15 Sequoia is in beta release, so you can preview this fix by downloading and installing the beta at developer.apple.com

Comment 5 Adrian Roselli 2024-09-01 06:43:00 PDT

Thanks to a kind soul (Roberto Perez) on Mastodon, it appears this is fixed:
https://tweesecake.social/@rperez030/113058633044394970

(I am not in a position to run a beta OS on my Mac.)