in reply to James Scholes

In some web platform circles, there's a push for a move away from walled garden distribution methods like the App Store and native apps in general.

Broadly, I think progressive web apps (PWAs) should be easier to distribute and install. And Apple should definitely do more to make those a viable option on iOS.

Unfortunately, purely web-based apps are currently not able to take advantage of several important #accessibility features, primary among them the ability to add actions to elements (e.g. for the VoiceOver rotor).

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in reply to Jamie Teh

@jcsteh @pitermach It's a start. It's not quite the same, given that for privacy reasons it can only invoke concrete controls in the DOM rather than arbitrary event handlers, and it's not clear how those controls can be adequately hidden from SR users without disadvantaging other audiences.

When I most recently discussed it with a member of the ARIA WG and a screen reader engineer (in October), it seemed there were quite a few open questions about the relevant side effects too, like focus movement and restoration for e.g. actions that are toggles or open a piece of UI that can later be closed.

But as I say, it's a start and I'm hopeful it will make a difference. I like web apps, both as a developer and a user.

in reply to James Scholes

@pitermach Yeah, I've been thinking on those points. The privacy issues are pretty significant, so we really can't have it activating stuff that isn't visible in the DOM. I know native apps can, but native apps don't provide any privacy guarantees whatsoever, plus you explicitly choose to install them. One thing I've been wondering about though is whether we could just hide any target of aria-actions for mobile screen reader users or at least provide an attribute to enable that.
in reply to Jamie Teh

@jcsteh @pitermach The privacy aspects are definitely critical. Not to mention the fact that while this may be a solved problem on mobile for screen reader users, other groups haven't traditionally had a great experience when controls have been hidden or offloaded to custom gestures. AFAIK keyboard users on iOS only got access to actions when Full Keyboard Access was added, but on the web we're approaching it from the angle of having at least some keyboard access already.
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