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We are using NVDA for accessibility testing of our Single Page Application. We have classified the various sections on the page with the appropriate roles and aria-label. Using NVDAKey + F7, we are able to bring u the Elements List and in Landmarks we can see the various sections of the page.

However, when we navigate to a new page within the application, the NVDA Elements List does not get updated.

Is there something which we need to do to refresh the NVDA elements List after screen navigation is done? Closing and opening it again is helping, but that may not be the convenient way for most users right?

Apps
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  • does it update if you set focus on an item when a new page loads (you could try this by just pressing Tab once after a page has reloaded). Not seen this problem before but we always focus the `

    ` on the page to let the user know a new page has been loaded when it is a SPA, it might require some form of action to update the list.

     – GrahamTheDev Jun 17 '20 at 08:47
  • We are also focusing on the h1 on the page once the navigation is completed. So it reads that properly. My question was more on the Elements List (NVDA Key + F7). That doesn't get updated after the screen navigation – Apps Jun 17 '20 at 13:24
  • @GrahamRitchie - Are you describing the Elements List? I'm not seeing the behavior that you describe at all. It seems more like you're describing the reading behavior as it relates to focus. – Josh Jun 17 '20 at 17:27

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I couldn't find a definite answer in the NVDA documentation, but from my own testing it doesn't appear that the Elements List updates when the DOM is updated.

I attempted to test using a few different JavaScript methods (document.write, object.innerHTML, document.createElement, document.createTextNode) and in each case, the NVDA Elements List would not update automatically after the page content had changed.

Changing the radio button at the top (i.e. from "Landmarks" to something else and back again, does seem to refresh the Elements List. The result is the same if you manually close it (ESC key) and re-open it (NVDA+F7).

I'm not aware of anything that developers can do to change this behavior. It appears to be by design.

Josh
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  • You were right, I wrote an autohotkeys script that I completely forgot about that refreshes the list on load (it closes it and reopens it again). As the script runs on startup in the background and had this PC for 3 years now I completely forgot it wasn't native functionality! +1 – GrahamTheDev Jun 17 '20 at 19:35
  • It used to be available on github but I changed my account, I may try and get it shared somewhere and link to it. – GrahamTheDev Jun 17 '20 at 20:16
  • May be the browser that's used also has a role here. I'm using chrome. Read in many places NVDA works well with firefox. We dont' have the permission to use firefox. – Apps Jun 22 '20 at 04:28