Oh you mean ten ENGLISH pounds???
Testing a donation page during an accessibility audit
Iona and I had fun recently on the Donation Page of a Charity that we were testing.
We had a choice of options: £5, £10, £50, Other.
The web page was clear and easy to understand. Iona wanted to see if she could donate £10.
Iona uses voice recognition software because of her hand disability. She tried the following:
“Click Ten Pounds”
Nothing happened.
“Click Link” (hoping they would all have handy little numbers appear by them so she could then choose the correct option)
Nothing happened.
“Click Button” (again hoping they would all have handy little numbers appear by them so she could then choose the correct option)
Nothing happened.
She tried these a few times, just in case the problem was the voice recognition software.
No joy.
Fall back to Tab
She then resorted to the Tab fallback, which usually works. This is where Iona repeatedly says the word Tab. You may then see each element outlined as she works her way through them from the top of the page.
As you can imagine, this is never ideal. It becomes tiring very quickly and she can only speak at a rate that that voice recognition software can run at. If you have not seen her videos before, say the word Tab out loud followed by two and three in your head ie
Tab (two three)
Tab (two three)
Tab (two three)
You get the idea, it is rather slow!
What does the ARIA label say?
Anyway, as Iona was slowly tabbing her way through the page, I had a look at the code in the inspector. This is not always possible to do as there is often reams of JavaScript getting in the way. I noticed that although the text just said £10, the ARIA label helpfully said 10 ENGLISH Pounds instead,
I asked Iona to say “Ten ENGLISH Pounds” to her Voice Dictation and, hey presto, the value was selected and she could move on to fill in the rest of the required details.
In conclusion
Speech Dictation software has a difficult job to do. If there had not been an ARIA label, it would have worked when Iona said “Click Ten Pounds”. However, it saw the ARIA label and was not able to find the phrase “Ten Pounds” because it had the word ENGLISH in it!
So, because of the incorrectly-applied ARIA label , instead of just saying 3 words, Iona had to say the word Tab rather more than just 3 times! The form itself was quite cleanly coded otherwise, but of course, it just became another frustrating experience. However, it was one that can be easily remedied, which is so often the way and why what we do is so rewarding.
If you would like to have a chat about working with us, please book yourself in for a chat.
Caption: A cartoon of a £10 note with the Union Flag behind it. Text reads "Oh you mean 10 ENGLISH pounds???"
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