W3C

– DRAFT –
ARIA and Assistive Technologies Community Group Weekly Teleconference

16 October 2025

Attendees

Present
carmen, ChrisCuellar, dean, elizabeth, IsaDC, james, jugglinmike, Matt_King, mfairchild
Regrets
-
Chair
-
Scribe
jugglinmike

Meeting minutes

Review agenda and next meeting dates

Matt_King:

Matt_King: Next AT Driver Subgroup meeting: Monday October 20

Matt_King: Next CG meeting: Wednesday October 22

Matt_King: Requests for changes to agenda?

carmen: I'd like to discuss issue 1575

carmen: in ARIA-AT App

Matt_King: Got it, we'll do our best to get to that, too

Current status

Matt_King: Apple has approved at least one of the "link" test plans, "link example 1". I went ahead and moved it to "recommended"

Matt_King: I think they expect to approve a couple more test plans in short order

Matt_King: That's a big deal!

Matt_Kings: It's the simplest test plan, but having one is better than none

Matt_King: We also advanced the second of two "switch" test plans to the "candidate" phase

Matt_King: So we're really close to having all the "switch" test plans done

carmen: Should we promote this milestone publicly?

Matt_King: I don't want to make too big of a deal about it right now. Maybe at TPAC

Matt_King: Coming next in "draft review" is the "two-state checkbox"

IsaDC: I implemented the latest changes you requested

Matt_King: Okay, that's probably about ready to merge. That should be ready for the test queue next week

Matt_King: Then, after that is the "quantity spin button" test plan

IsaDC: I've been working on that this past week

Question about Disclosure Navigation Menu Example

Matt_King: Did we raise an issue for this, and do we have an understanding of the root cause?

<ChrisCuellar> github: w3c/aria-at-app#1574

ChrisCuellar: Yes, we did create an issue for this

ChrisCuellar: I think this is a test plan report that got hidden by our automated run filtering, initially

Matt_King: so maybe it is a valid run

ChrisCuellar: I think so, yes

ChrisCuellar: There were differences in the JAWS versions from the report that's already been available

ChrisCuellar: There was a JAWS/Chrome completed in March of 2025

ChrisCuellar: And there's another that is incomplete. I asked howard-e to check the internal timestamp on when it was created, and he reported that it was created in September of this year

Matt_King: I vaguely remember saying that we would re-run this when the new version came out

ChrisCuellar: I think there was another bot run that JoeHumbert took over

Matt_King: Okay, that means we actually have work to do here on this one

Matt_King: We'll take this up.

Matt_King: As I recall, JoeHumbert is out for a week or two

Matt_King: It looks like there is a second JAWS Bot run that we could assign to somebody

ChrisCuellar: JoeHumbert took one but just needs to assign verdicts

Matt_King: You're saying that was done in September with the September release of JAWS

Matt_King: Do we have another JAWS tester who is willing to take on this second run?

IsaDC: It would have to be me, but I already have a lot of other test plans assigned to me

Matt_King: We need more JAWS testers in this group

carmen: I'll close the issue, then

Issue 1576: Proposal to open test runner in a new browser tab

github: w3c/aria-at-app#1576

Matt_King: I raised this issue as a result of some of my frustration

Matt_King: But I wanted to check with people before decided to do anything

Matt_King: when I open the test plan in the runner and return to the queue, the state of the queue is completely refreshed--all the disclosures are collapsed, and the filters are reset

Matt_King: It would be very complicated to have the test queue remember the state that it was in and reload that state whenever you return

Matt_King: I was thinking that a simpler solution is that whenever you do "start testing" or "continue testing" or "run as", that those open the runner in a new browser tab, and that completing the testing just closes the new tab

james: Let's not open a new window

james: If it was a link, people could opt to do that themselves

james: I feel like a list of links for "run as" and a list of links for "start testing" would be fine

ChrisCuellar: We can look into this. I like the suggestion of opening in a new tab

ChrisCuellar: This is a complaint of mine, as well: I would like to add more relative links in the test queue so that it's easier to navigate to specific places

ChrisCuellar: I think we can also encode the state of the test queue in the URL. You're right that it would be a little more work, but I think the solution can be multi-faceted

Matt_King: My current state of mind is: "what is the absolute simplest solution, first?" You know--the 80%-20% rule

Matt_King: And you're right that the test queue performance is relevant because it does take a few seconds to load. Closing a browser tab is an instantaneous way to return to it

IsaDC: I think we could also use some breadcrumbs within the "conflicts" page

Matt_King: I always open the "conflicts" page in a new tab because it is a link

ChrisCuellar: In the issue, let's list the common scenarios that are most frustrating

james: The runner already has links, they just have role=menuitem

Matt_King: that means changing the UI element from a menu to a disclosure, and that takes away the typeahead...

Matt_King: Maybe ignore the "run as..." one for now and just focus on the "start testing" button

ChrisCuellar: This has all been helpful

Matt_King: We could consider changing "start testing" and "continue testing" from buttons to links

Running test plan for Tabs with Automatic Activation

Matt_King: This is just a quick check-in

Matt_King: Have we heard from Hadi?

IsaDC: No, but I remember he said that we could change his results if necessary

Matt_King: Okay, let's prioritize your other work above this. Maybe I'll do it in the mean time

Running test plan for Tabs with Manual Activation

Matt_King: on JAWS, that's IsaDC

Matt_King: Thank you very much for doing the work on this, dean

Matt_King: JoeHumbert is almost done; there's just one incomplete test at the very end

IsaDC: This is the one that we fixed

Matt_King: but we have 5 conflicting results

dean: They're pretty simple

dean: JoeHumbert had a side-effect that I didn't have

dean: I think the others are just checking the wrong box, judging from the output he reported

dean: I started another bot run and checked it this morning; I should be able to do those tomorrow

Matt_King: in test 4, you both had the same output, and in this one, JoeHumbert says it did not switch from "browse mode" to "focus mode", but dean says that it did switch

dean: But JoeHumbertisn't here today, so we can't resolve that right now

Matt_King: The next conflict is in test 13. It looks like the same output to me.

dean: I think I was running 25.2, but I would have to double-check

Matt_King: This is another one where the negative side-effects are different

Matt_King: You both had all the same assertion verdicts, it appears

Matt_King: I don't remember if there was a "tab panel boundary" assertion, but if it failed, then it seems like this negative side-effect would actually be equivalent...

Matt_King: I guess we need JoeHumbert present to clarify

Matt_King: Ah, this is for "down arrow"

Matt_King: We'll wait until JoeHumbert returns to address this. But it looks like we're really close except for these conflicts!

Matt_King: As for VoiceOver...

dean: JoeHumbert is done with that, and I should be able to complete the work on my part tomorrow

Matt_King: Fantastic, that's great! Thank you, dean

Running tests for Switch Example Using HTML Checkbox Input

Matt_King: this has JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver all available, including bot runs ready to be re-assigned

Matt_King: But everyone here is busy, so maybe we will need to wait until next week

Matt_King: It is a relatively short test plan

Updating reports to latest screen reader versions

Matt_King: Right now, we have five VoiceOver automated runs

Matt_King: If you go to the filter on the test queue labeled "Automated updates", you will find five test plans listed

Matt_Kings: I completed one of these last week, but I can't remember which

Matt_King: I wanted to get a sense of the workload. The primary differences that I was seeing was the situations where the VoiceOver bot had collected the "hint text" information in the output but the human who previously ran the test plan omitted that information

Matt_King: I see that Elizabeth has raised an issue where they were getting output that differed from that of the bot

Elizabeth: I noticed for one of the tests that I was working on. Perhaps it was "down arrow with quick nav off". The response the bot recorded did not sound right, so I double-checked and found I was getting a different response

Matt_King: I wonder if this is a bot isssue

ChrisCuellar: It could be a bot issue!

Matt_King: This is kind of an interesting case in the GitHub issue functionality. If there's a conflict, then you can raise an issue, and it automatically captures the output. I guess in the test runner, you do have that information...

Matt_King: I guess if you wanted to see the difference, ChrisCuellar, you would have to use the "Run as" feature

Matt_King: This is test 4

Matt_King: This is strange output. It seems as though the focus was in the wrong place

Matt_King: when I

Matt_King: It looks like Elizabeth submitted the results. Elizabeth, you answered the assertions based on the VoiceOver output that was there, is that right?

Elizabeth: That's right. I was actually not sure what to do.

Matt_King: Thank you for raising this question

Matt_King: In this particular case--this is where the bot really produced an incorrect result. We actually do want to change the response and put in what VoiceOver is actually saying

Matt_King: It's really good that you raised this issue because we need to know that the bot is giving the wrong response

Matt_King: I think I might have seen something like this--where the bot was recording the VoiceOver response as if Quick Nav was off. Rather, it recorded an "arrow" response as if quick nav was on, but it should have been off.

ChrisCuellar: so there may have been an issue with the "quick nav" toggling

Matt_King: Right

Matt_King: I wonder if "quick nav" was on in the prior test--in test 3

Matt_King: So yes, it could just be the setting of "quick nav" on and off which is causing the problem here

Matt_King: Elizabeth, could you please change the value of the "output" field and put in the response that you are observing from VoiceOver?

Elizabeth: Sure. I just wasn't sure based on some prior discussions

Matt_King: If it looks like the bot response is correct, we don't want to change it at all--we want the response to be formatted in the way that the bot would recorded (just in case there's a material difference between how the bot would report it and how a human would record it). But if it looks incorrect, as it does in this case, then we should change it

Matt_King: We want to make sure that, as much as possible, we are recording responses in the way the bot would record them. In this case, we should just record the correct response as best as we can

Matt_King: We're out of time for this meeting, so we will include carmen's issue in the agenda for next week

Matt_King: Thank you everybody!

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 246 (Wed Oct 1 15:02:24 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/pla/plan/

Succeeded: s/Joe /JoeHumbert /

Succeeded: s/umber /umbert/

Maybe present: Matt_Kings

All speakers: carmen, ChrisCuellar, dean, Elizabeth, IsaDC, james, Matt_King, Matt_Kings

Active on IRC: ChrisCuellar, jugglinmike