A typical heading in an Android app How role announcements differ within native apps and on the web For native Android apps, an appropriate attribute needs to be added to the view in XML, for example applying android:accessibilityHeading='true' to indicate that a TextView represents a heading. For web-based content, this is achieved using WAI-ARIA. In some cases, particularly for custom components or where an appropriate native element is not available, developers must manually identify the role. On encountering these elements, a screen reader will announce 'Checkbox' and 'Button' respectively when the element receives focus. Examples include for checkboxes in HTML, and for buttons in native Android applications. Most development environments include elements where the role is automatically set and conveyed by a screen reader.

When coded correctly, a screen reader will normally announce the element's role, so people using those technologies know what the element is and how they can interact with it. Brief refresher on rolesĪ role defines a UI element's type, such as a heading, button, slider, checkbox, and so on. This blog post looks at when it is acceptable for a role not to be announced, the roles that TalkBack does announce, and what this means for conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). When comparing this behaviour against web content, this can often give the (false) impression that these elements must have been coded incorrectly and therefore need to be 'fixed'. TalkBack only announces role information for a relatively small number of user interface (UI) elements within native apps.

Accessibility screen reader for android