What should the announcement say when new elements appear on the screen?

By Bobby, 19 May, 2016

Forum
App Development and Programming

I am working on a food delivery app.

Items can be added to the basket. When the first item is added a 'view basket' button appears at the bottom of the screen.

I have 2 ideas to make this accessible.

Option 1: Have voice over move focus to the view basket button when it first appears. I guess this will be annoying if you want to add more items.

Option 2: Not quite sure of the wording, but announce "View basket is available at the bottom of the screen" so that users know it's there and can tap the bottom of the screen when they are ready to proceed.

Not sure which is best? What do other good apps do in these situations?

Options

Comments

By JeffB on Monday, May 23, 2016 - 01:36

Could you have the baskit icon right above where the home button is? That way it would be easy to find. I've seen an app called Indigo do this and its very handy.

By Bobby on Monday, May 23, 2016 - 01:36

In reply to by JeffB

Yes! The button is a large button at the bottom of the screen.

my worry is voice over users will not know the button is there and won't know how to proceed.

I am a bit new to this tho. Perhaps users find new buttons on their own by scanning the screen?

By OldBear on Monday, May 23, 2016 - 01:36

I guess it would be ok to have it announce "view basket is now at the bottom of the screen," or something like that.
Having the app move the focus away from what I am doing would be very aggravating to me.

By TJT 2001 on Monday, May 23, 2016 - 01:36

Don't move the VoiceOver focus. The wording you use depends on what you want to say. How would you describe what is happening if you were writing a book, for example?

By JeffB on Monday, May 23, 2016 - 01:36

I think people would find it if you are werried you could always put it in a help section.

By Daniel Angus M… on Saturday, April 23, 2022 - 01:36

So when I search for something on the Amazon app, I add it to my cart, and when added, VoiceOver says “X next to the item count.I have the option of checking out and buying right then, but I can also go to the bottom to the cart tab. VoiceOver says “cart one item. The Apple store app is slightly different. I shop for something, and when I want to add it to my bag, I press the “Add to Bag button. VoiceOver says, “one item added to bag. Also back to Amazon, after the add to cart button is pressed, it has haptic feedback before the VoiceOver announcement. Both approaches work well and they’re a good implementation of VoiceOver access.

By Jakob Rosin on Saturday, April 23, 2022 - 01:36

I would say an announcement isn't necessary in this case. After adding an item to your chart, an announcement about "X was added to your car. Total price = Y" would be useful. However, as long as the "view cart" button is visible on the screen without needing to scroll to it, you don't need to announce its presence. You could explain the situation in the help documentation.

By Kevin Shaw on Saturday, April 23, 2022 - 01:36

Standard behaviour is to have VoiceOver announce a change to the state of the basket. I use a grocery app that has excellent VoiceOver implementation.
To select an item, the VO user swipes up. VoiceOver announces: 1 in cart, 2 in cart, etc.

The problem with announcing the change of the view is that some VoiceOver users may find it too verbose. Please be sure to reference Apple's UI and accessibility guidelines when building your app. Good luck.

By AaronE on Saturday, April 23, 2022 - 01:36

DEFINITELY don’t move focus.

New buttons becoming available doesn’t need to be announced.

As Jakob said, you only need to announce a meaningful change that a sighted user would also care about.

For example, a simple ‘added, 2 items in cart’ or even just ‘2 items in cart
announcement would be reasonable if your visual UI is a cart icon with a numbered badge on it.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Thursday, June 23, 2022 - 01:36

Hi,

Just a thought, why not attach a VoiceOver action to the line item?

You can also have, remove item as well

Actions available:
- View Basket
- Remove Item
- Buy Now
- etc