[FYI] Chrome Version 76 Accessibility Release Notes

[Laura (Palmaro) Allen]

Hi everyone,

Chrome version 76 comes with a number of accessibility fixes and improvements across platforms. Here are some of the notable updates in this milestone, with links to relevant bugs for reference. 

Chrome OS

• Automatic Clicks

• Chrome 76 introduces a number of updates and improvements for the accessibility feature Automatic Clicks. This feature can be helpful for users with motor or dexterity challenges, as it makes it possible to interact with the interface without putting physical pressure on the mouse or touchpad to click. You can simply hover over a given item and Chrome OS will click for you. Now, in addition to being able to left click, it’s possible to right click, click and drag, doubleclick as well as pause from clicking (e.g. if you are reading an article and don’t want to click as you move the mouse). When this feature is on, there is a new visual controller on the screen where you can choose which type of click you’d like to do, or move the controller to another corner of the screen. In addition to these more general feature updates, the following items were also addressed in Automatic Clicks: 

• Fixes a bug where scrolling triggers an automatic click.

• Fixes a bug with the ink drop size is smaller than the button on larger displays.

• Fixes a bug with how the feature interacts with the bookmarks bar.

• Adds support for right to left languages in the automatic clicks context menu.

• Several UX and UI improvements, including the wording used for display, icons for click and drag, and more.

• Hides the auto click button when the cursor is hidden in fullscreen mode.

• Makes cancelation of an automatic click while stabilization is on much more responsive.

• Now shows a confirmation menu when disabling the automatic clicks feature.

• Improvements made to the navigation flow on the login screen.

• ChromeVox:

• Improved the descriptive strings used to describe battery usage on ChromeOS.

Windows, Mac, Linux

• Across Desktop Platforms

• Chrome 76 introduces a number of accessibility fixes in DevTools, including making console log levels localizable, and improving keyboard navigation and labelling in the App Manifest view and Service Worker view.

• Fixes missing labeling in Chrome extensions/shortcuts page.

• Improves accessibility of the incognito window counter. Specifically, it updates the accessible title and role of the incognito toolbar button to ensure it is announced correctly by screenreaders, as well as the accessible title of guest windows.

• Mac-specific

• Fixes a bug which caused VoiceOver to announce the text next to checkboxes twice. 

• Fixes a regression which caused VoiceOver to not read the characters typed into the Omnibox.

• Get Image Descriptions From Google

• Chrome 76 introduces several accessibility fixes to the Get Image Descriptions From Google feature introduced to a small set of users in version 75, which is being rolled out further in August across desktop platforms (Mac, Windows, Chrome OS, Linux). 

• Only run the feature on specified URL schemes.

• Update of strings shown to user for better UX and consistency.

• Now promotes Get Image Descriptions from Google only on the first unlabeled image on a page.

• Two bug fixes specifically with JAWS:

• Fixes a bug where the auto alt alert for one time only use would not be announced correctly.

• Fixes a bug where images opened in new tabs would not be annotated correctly, and therefore not announced correctly.

iOS

• Improves readability of table cell sublabels.

Laura (Palmaro) Allen |

Google |

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

[Laura (Palmaro) Allen]

Hi Kenny,

Thank you for your note. We are sincerely sorry for the trouble that this bug had caused and worked to implement a fix as soon as possible after identifying where the breakdown occurred. As a team - many of us being screen reader users ourselves - we are working hard to make sure that our test passes will better catch any issues like this earlier moving forward, as we certainly do not want to see major bugs reach the stable channel and negatively impact our users. We are looking to expand our coverage in the future. We understand your frustration and recognize the severity of this issue and assure you that we are taking further preventative measures. Here is the bug in our Chromium tracker. 

Thank you for your valuable feedback. 

- Laura 

Laura (Palmaro) Allen |

Google |

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

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 11:19 AM kenny Hitt <hitt...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi. I have a question about chrome for Android. When Google pushed chrome 75 to Android, it broke the ability to read webviews. on the eyes-free group or anywhere else, Google has never explained what happened. They didn't even admit the problem existed until a week after it had broken things for everyone. it was fixed with a release of chrome 76, but I haven't seen any bug reports or any explanations. How did such a critical bug make it into the stable release of chrome 75? More important, what steps were taken to make sure it won't happen again? I'm sorry for any attitude, but it was very insulting for Google to ignore this issue for a week, and then post about it on the eyes-free group with a message starting out hoping we all had a nice day. You broke our access to all apps that use webviews, it wasn't a good time!

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