🏠 Overview › 👥 User Roles ›📖 Receive Real-Time Spoken Announcements for Dynamic...

Receive Real-Time Spoken Announcements for Dynamic Content Changes

Many app interactions result in asynchronous or dynamic content changes: a registration is submitted and a success banner appears, a notification arrives, a search returns results, a form is validated and errors appear. Without live region announcements, a screen reader user would be unaware of these changes unless they happen to navigate to the updated area. The live-region-announcer must be integrated throughout the app to broadcast relevant state changes. The accessibility-live-region-announcer must support both 'polite' (queued after current speech) and 'assertive' (interrupts immediately) announcement priorities. Notification accessibility announcer must handle incoming push notification summaries.

HIGH story-screen-reader-support-peer-mentor-004 8 pts
8
Story Points
High
Priority
Screen Reader Support
Feature

User Story

As a Peer Mentor (Likeperson)
I want to hear spoken announcements when dynamic content changes on screen — such as new notifications, loading states, confirmation messages, or error alerts — without having to manually navigate to find the updated content
So that I am always aware of what is happening in the app without needing to visually scan the screen, enabling efficient and confident use of the app

Acceptance Criteria

  • Given an activity is submitted, when the success confirmation appears, then a polite live region announces 'Activity registered successfully' within 500ms of the UI update
  • Given a network error occurs during submission, when the error banner appears, then an assertive live region immediately announces the error message text
  • Given the peer mentor is on the search screen and results load, when results appear, then a polite announcement reads 'X results found' where X is the count
  • Given a new push notification arrives while the app is in the foreground, when the notification banner appears, then a polite announcement reads the notification title and summary
  • Given a loading spinner is shown, when it appears, then a live region announces 'Loading' and when it disappears announces 'Loading complete'
  • Given an assertive and polite announcement are queued simultaneously, when they are dispatched, then the assertive announcement interrupts and is read first

Business Value

Screen reader users are at a significant disadvantage when apps provide visual-only feedback for asynchronous operations. Live region announcements are the accessibility equivalent of the visual status feedback that sighted users receive automatically. Without them, visually impaired peer mentors would need to manually explore the screen after every interaction to verify success — dramatically slowing their workflow and introducing errors in reporting. This feature brings parity of experience between sighted and visually impaired users.

Components

Dependencies

Screen Reader Support
Related Feature
Peer Mentor (Likeperson)
User Role