Accessibility Issues: Instant app won't recognize field as aria-label, defaults to table name

Question

HI! We're currently in the process of updating our applications to meet WCAG accessibility standards and are reviewing all of them as part of this effort. You may have seen my other post. Per our ESRI solution engineer has recommended that we post all issues in the community forum in addition to opening tickets. We're trying to collaborate and raise awareness of the issues we're seeing in our applications. We want to highlight ones that can be easily resolved by users and which ones fall under ESRI's purview. Issue: The instant app has an option for accessibility in the attachments section. The tool let's me select a field as the input however it does not use display the field text, it defaults to the table name. See the images below as references.  Am I missing a step or where I can make this accessible from the instant app? Or, does this need to be fixed internally by ESRI? Has anyone else encountered similar challenges? How are you approaching this? Any tips or best practices would be greatly appreciated!

App: https://maps.cookcountyil.gov/hwyproject/

table example:

instant app selection

Label issue, aria label showing the table name and not the field user selected.

sigccil · Answer

Hi  @SarahMcDonald_Esri ,

Thank you for the quick respond and looking into this issue. The PDFs in the icons are buttons so it's not clear if the alt text for images are at all being populated...

While I was writing the response, I reread the section for "Attachments alternative text" in the info button pop-out and it makes sense that it's for image attachments and only work for one. The idea of the buttons not being images didn't register at first because the option to add the alternative text is available. Where are these images that I added these alternative text being populated? Do they even exist? Or is this a case where I'm filling in options for a function that doesn't run at all because there is no images in the section for this application? Hence the limitation you mentioned.

Let me know your thoughts and again, thank you!

SarahMcDonald_ · Answer

Hi @sigccil

Thanks for reaching out about accessibility in Attachment Viewer.

For the issue you reported, I had a chance to look into this more. In one of the screenshots shared above the developer tools are pointing to the aria-label. That is not actually the alt text that the attachments alternative text is referring to. The aria label is actually using the pop-up title which is why you are seeing "Construction project" for each aria-label.

The Aria-label is slightly different than alternative text. Alt text describes visual content or the purpose of an image. Aria-labels provide an accessible name for interactive elements.

I am continuing to look into this, but I believe there might be a limit with the attachment alternative text setting a PDF attachment types. I will post a reply once I know for sure.

Thanks!

Sarah