Our team recently developed an ArcGIS Story Map, which was tested for 508 compliance by our agency. Two issues were identified that cannot be updated by the content developer due to limitations with Story Maps.
1. “More Options” Feature: The first (critical) issue pertains to the three dots on the top right corner of the Story Map with an accessible text of "More Options.” The Element is part of a template from ESRI, the Div is set as Role=presentation. The Aria attribute "Aria-expanded" is not allowed within a presentation role. Please fix all of the following: ARIA attribute is not allowed: aria-expanded="false".
Why this Matters: “Using ARIA attributes in roles where they are not allowed can interfere with the accessibility of the web page. Using an invalid role-attribute combination will, at best, result in no effect on the accessibility of the application and, at worst, may trigger behavior that disables accessibility for entire portions of an application. When ARIA attributes are used on HTML elements that are not in accordance with WAI-ARIA 1.1, they conflict with the semantics of the elements which can cause assistive technology products report nonsensical user interface (UI) information that does not represent the actual UI of the document.”
2. Image Gallery Alt Text: Four images included in an “Imagery Gallery” within the Story Map were flagged during testing in that they do not support the "aria-label" auto generated for the images with the custom Alt Text. The images require a role such as role=figure, however they are generated as div attributes with no roles and a given aria-label. The Aria-labels can also be considered as Captions or Text attributes for the graphic. The Aria-label attribute is incorrectly used. Please fix the following: Aria-label attribute is not well supported on a div with no valid role attribute.
Why this Matters: "Using ARIA attributes in roles where they are prohibited can mean that important information is not communicated to users of assistive technologies. Assistive technologies may also attempt to compensate for the issue, resulting in inconsistent and confusing behavior of these tools."
Will these above limitations be addressed in future upgrades to ArcGIS Story Maps to enhance accessibility?
