combobox role (aria)

Expectation: convey its name

Rationale:

A screen reader user needs to know what to enter.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: MUST

Examples:

• A screen reader might convey the name as something like "<role>, <name>, <value>" (order varies by screen reader and settings)
• Voice control software might allow the user to say "click <name>" to focus the combobox

Expectation: convey its role

Rationale:

A screen reader user needs to know how they can interact with the element. Voice control software might use the role to help users activate controls that do not have a visible name.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: MUST

Examples:

• A screen reader might convey the role as something like "combo box"
• Voice control software might allow the user to say "click text box" to focus an editable combobox

Expectation: convey that the combobox is editable

Rationale:

users should be made aware that they can type into a combobox. Not all comboboxes are editable.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Examples:

• A screen reader might convey that the combobox is editable by announcing something like "editable"

Expectation: convey changes in value

Rationale:

The user needs to know that the value was successfully changed.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Examples:

• A screen reader might announce the new value after it has been changed

Expectation: convey the current value

Rationale:

A screen reader user needs to know the current value of the input.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Notes:

Historically, this has not been a requirement explicitly defined in the ARIA spec. However, native counterparts do this, the value us displayed visually, and ARIA 1.2 (draft) does explicitly state this requirement.

Examples:

• A screen reader might convey the value as something like "<role>, <name>, <value>" (order varies by screen reader and settings)

Expectation: provide shortcuts to jump to this role

Rationale:

Screen reader users might want to quickly navigate to elements of this type.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: SHOULD
• Voice Control: NA

Examples:

• A screen reader might provide a keyboard shortcut to jump to the next form control or provide a list of all form controls

No tests reference this expectation yet.