Bug 247203 – AX: VoiceOver in Safari macOS and iOS not speaking a state for aria-expanded when used on a link element

• Status: NEW
• Component: Accessibility

[Paul J. Adam]

VoiceOver used in Safari on macOS or iOS will not speak the state of aria-expanded when it's used on a link element.


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Turn on VoiceOver on iOS and/or macOS.
2. Visit https://pauljadam.com/demos/aria-expanded.html in Safari or Mobile Safari.
3. Set VoiceOver focus to the link element using aria-expanded.

Expected Result:

VoiceOver says "link Dynamic Section, expanded"

Actual Result:

VoiceOver says "link Dynamic Section"

[Radar WebKit Bug Importer]

<rdar://problem/101683056>

[Diane Ko]

Also confirmed this is an issue with Safari specifically, as you can open the node inspector in Safari and notice that the expanded state is not in the accessibility node information for the link. It's properly exposed as expanded for a link in Chrome and Firefox.

(My reply to mailto:[e-mail]
> VoiceOver used in Safari on macOS or iOS wouldn't  speak the state of
> aria-expanded when it's used on one link element.
> 
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Turn on VoiceOver on iOS 
> 2. Visit https://pauljadam.com/demos/aria-expanded.html in Safari or Mobile
> Safari.
> 3. Set up VoiceOver focus to the link element using aria-expanded.
> 
> Expected Result:
> 
> VoiceOver says "link Dynamic Section, expanded"
> 
> Actual Result:
> 
> VoiceOver says "link Dynamic section"!

[Curtis Wilcox]

Checking this in Safari 18.3.1 on macOS 15.3.2 and iOS 18.3.2, none of elements announce an aria-expanded state change (though iOS's caption panel will display "collapsed" or "expanded"). (For role="tab", aria-expanded is not appropriate, the aria-selected attribute is appropriate and its state change is conveyed.)

I have found this is also true of HTML with implicit aria-expanded states, details / summary, and buttons with popovertarget.

See also: 
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=263498

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=284804

[Zoltan Hawryluk]

This is a really annoying Priority 1 bug and really reduces the accessibility on a website.  Given that it used to work, and this ticket is pretty old, is there any way we can get this fixed quickly?