[FYI] Chrome version 71 release notes

[Laura (Palmaro) Allen]

Hi everyone,

As Chrome version 71 now rolls out to the Stable Channel, we wanted to share some of the work that went into this milestone. Thanks for all of your continued feedback. Wishing everyone very happy holidays, as well! 

Chrome 71 Accessibility Release Notes

Chrome version 71 comes with a number of accessibility fixes and improvements across platforms. Here are some of the notable updates in this milestone.

• Windows and Mac

• Text scale: Chrome now respects Windows 10 text scale factor preferences. In Windows 10, these preferences can be set in the Ease of Access Center under "Make text bigger".

• Magnification: Chrome 71 fixes an issue where screen magnifiers like ZoomText weren’t getting the correct bounding box when the caret was positioned at the end of a text field. This version also fixes an issue where Chrome could scroll to the wrong coordinates when ZoomText tried to scroll a particular element into view.

• Dialogs: Chrome 71 fixes accessibility of checkboxes in Chrome dialogs, and checked menu items in extension menus. In addition, windows screen reader commands to read the dialog title or announce the whole dialog contents now work for Chrome dialogs that appear inside of a specific Chrome tab.

• Bookmarks: The Chrome Bookmark manager now announces that you can undo deleting a bookmark with a keyboard shortcut. In addition, Chrome 71 fixes an issue where screen readers had announced the wrong list item index in the Bookmark Manager.

• Chrome OS

• ChromeVox:

• Chrome 71 fixes an issue with the cursor when using ChromeVox with a refreshable braille display.

• The ChromeVox menus (accessible through pressing Search + Period) now show corresponding gestures you can perform on a touch screen.

• ChromeVox now better recovers when objects disappear from the screen as you're trying to navigate through them.

• ChromeVox better handles restoring your place in a document when switching back to a previously visited tab.  

• ChromeVox now correctly announces the title of an alert dialog when opening it.

• Select-to-speak:

• Select-to-speak is now part of the Chrome OS out-of-box experience. You can turn Select-to-speak on from the Accessibility dropdown in the very first screens during the setup experience.

• Chrome 71 adds improvements to how Select-to-speak reads objects in Google Slides.

• In Select-to-speak settings, interacting with the Select-to-speak word highlighting toggle button now works better with the keyboard.

• Dictation now uses the input language for the selected text field rather than the system language.

• In efforts to promote inclusion, gender is no longer specified in the text-to-speech API

• Web

• Chrome 71 fixes an issue where clicking on or focusing a read-only text field on the web never showed a focus ring, even though it was actually focused.

• HTML input elements now expose the title attribute as their accessible name.

• Chrome 71 fixes an issue where whitespace wasn't inserted between appended text when a text field is part of the label for a control.

• Getting spelling suggestions via context menu will now work if the caret is at the boundary of a misspelled word.

• Android

• The Chrome video player controls no longer auto-hide when focused by TalkBack, providing more consistent access.

• iOS

• The progress bar for loading the Chrome page is now properly labeled, so provides improved verbalization.

Laura (Palmaro) Allen |

Google |

Chrome & Chrome OS Accessibility Program Manager | Pronouns: she/her

[Dymphe Perry]

Hey Laura,

I just tried out Dictation again on the Pixel Slate Chrome OS 71.0.3578.94 (Official Build) beta. Activate it via search + D or clicking on the microphone > speak.

1. It turns off almost immediately, leaving no time to even take a breath in between words or a sentence.

2. It will not auto capitalize the first sentence in a text field. After saying period or question mark, it sometimes will but most of the time it won't. If it has turned off because of #1 > activate again > it never auto capitalizes.

Is this working as intended?

[Kyle]

Don't forget the Linux people out here, where ChromeOS got its start. Please,
either update ChromeVox for us, so that it works the same way it does on
ChromeOS, which is as far as I know still Linux underneath, or give us
*complete* support for the Orca screen reader that has worked very well for us
for many years in other applications. Thanks.
Imetumwa kutoka barua pepe

[Laura (Palmaro) Allen]

Hi Dymphe,

Thank you for this feedback. We are working on enhancing and improving the feature and have these items filed in our system as requests. Please do continue to send us your thoughts! 

- Laura 

Laura (Palmaro) Allen |

Google |

Chrome & Chrome OS Accessibility Program Manager | Pronouns: she/her

[Dana Mulvany]

I recently purchased a Chromebook and just turned it on today. (The original Chromebook given to me stopped working due to power issues.)  

I was pleased to see the Accessibility option show up right away upon opening the Chromebook (which turned on by itself) but I was disappointed to see that there were no accessibility options for people who need accessible (including visible) indications of sound or speech, even when I dug into the Accessibility menu.  This makes it look like people with hearing loss have been forgotten.  In contrast, Microsoft provides options within its accessibility settings for deaf and hard of hearing people to receive accessible notifications and captioning.

(For example, it is difficult for deaf and hard of hearing people to find out how to turn on the caption settings for YouTube videos to turn on automatically by default, and how to find captioned videos on YouTube. It would be much better if Google could facilitate turning the captioning option on for Chromebook users or at least communicate how to do this within the Accessibility settings. Displaying how captions actually look right away would help people pick the best captioning options for themselves, too.)

1.  For now, it would be helpful if there was a link provided within the Accessibility menu on Chromebooks to a page about accessibility topics and how people with different kinds of disabilities can turn on the adjustments they need.  But it would be very helpful for Google to work on making it easier for Chromebook users with hearing loss to learn how to make Google services accessible for their own needs. 

2. Provide options to customize alerting sounds

People who are hard of hearing often need to *customize* the sound of audible notifications. Many are deaf at certain frequencies (not just the high frequencies) and need to adjust notification sounds to a frequency range that they can hear. This can be extremely important for people who have both vision and hearing loss since visual notifications may not get their attention, whereas a loud sound that they can hear *can* get their attention.  Providing information about the frequencies that specific alerting sounds use can make it much easier for people who know the characteristics of their own hearing loss to choose alerting sounds that they can hear.

These recommendations would be useful for smart Google Home devices, too.  (I do not have one, however, so I don't know their current status.)

Dana Mulvany

dana.m...@gmail.com