Don't let every dynamic change read: is there a living aria = "zombie"?

Question

I have a <div tag where Im updates the text every few milliseconds. Visually, I see the text blinking, which is good.

I want this to be an aria-living area, so I can hear the text too, but I don't want JAWS to read every change of the text. It will be too bogged down.

So, if I change the text 4 times by the time the jaws finish reading the first change, I want the jaws to ignore the other 3 changes and just say the next change (5th change) and so on. Missed 3 changes are not important.

So, I kind of have an aria-living area that is actually not alive and not quite dead. I need some kind of zombie zone.

I tried various combinations of “polite” and “assertive”, as well as busy arias, but nothing I tried works.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can save an empty <div aria-live = "polite"> </div> at the bottom of the document. Then enter a copy of the text that you want to say at regular intervals in the div aria, and then remove the text from the div aria a second later or later.

Be careful how you use it. I could see use cases announcing the percentage of load, or for a live population counter, where you can declare it every couple of seconds or so.

For the most part, let the screen reader do what he wants to do. Sometimes we change our minds.