textarea element (html)

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

Notes:

For form inputs - commands to read line by line (down and up arrows in most windows screen readers) will not always result in the name being explicitly conveyed when the virtual focus is moved to an input where the label is visually displayed and programmatically associated with the input. This is acceptable because the name is implied by the fact that it should be naturally found in the reading order. Some screen readers choose to not convey the name in these cases, likely in an effort to reduce verbosity.

Examples:

• A screen reader will announce the name (label).
• Voice control software will let the user say something like "click <name>" to activate the control.

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 be announce the role as something like "edit", "edit multi line", "entry", "edit box", "multi line text field", or "edit text".
• Voice control software will let the user say something like "click text box" to focus a the input or flag the role with a number.

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:

• When the user enter texts, the screen reader will announce it back to them.
• When used with the datalist, the chosen suggestion should be announced after activating it.

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:

some screen readers may only convey part of the value or indicate that the control has a value.

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