Support Article
Autocomplete function is not working with a screen reader
Summary
Once the “intellisense” list appears, the number of results is not announced by the screen reader and there’s no instructions on how to get to the list of results found when user enters the letter “a” using the up and down arrow keys.
When the user types in the first letter “a”, the expectation is that a screen reader should read “Three results are available, use the up and down keys to navigate”.
Note that the number of results found should be a variable.
JAWS is not reading each list item properly when the user presses the UP and DOWN arrow keys.
Error Messages
Not applicable.
Steps to Reproduce
1. Turn on JAWS.
2. Navigate the autocomplete function using keyboard-Only with JAWS turned on.
Root Cause
A defect in Pegasystems’ code or rules. Issue arised due to the list in the drop-down is not given by auto to the user, when the focus is on the Autocomplete which is present in a modal dialog.
Later after deploying HFix-25834, list in the drop-down was read to the user using JAWS. But user was not able to select any option from drop-down.
This selection issue is a generic issue associated with JAWS version 14 in IE browser. Thus its not a Pega product's bug.
Issue 1:- The options in the list is not read by screen-reader(using JAWS).
Apply HFix-25834 to enable the JAWS to read the list from drop-down.
Issue 2:- After applying HFix, the options are read by screen-reader as expected but user wasn't able to select an option from list in drop-down.
It's a third-party product issue, user wasn't able to select an option from drop-down in JAWS version 14.
Perform the following local-change: Alternatively "Esc" key, can be used to select an option from drop-down.
Also, issue gets resolved when JAWS is upgraded to JAWS 15 or later version.
Published April 13, 2016 - Updated October 8, 2020
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