Video: React UI Accessibility on TV - Practical Case Study in Real Production

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Accessibility is no longer an option; it’s a mandatory requirement for successful product launches. While we can implement basic accessibility features using ARIA roles and properties in React components, real-world scenarios present additional complexities. When focusing on elements like the Contrast setting slider, how do we read menu names, selected values, and hints in TV interfaces? How do we read only changed values afterward? In this talk, I’ll share practical insights from our experience in making React components accessible for tens of millions of webOS TVs annually.

This talk has been presented at React Summit US 2024, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

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I'm excited to talk about React UI accessibility on TV. Enact is a React-based framework designed for TV UI components. Keyboard navigation is the minimum requirement for accessibility. The Enact framework has a module called Spotlight for TV remote direction keys. All attributes and roles are supported in JSX. Practical cases include reading a Dingbae font icon with no text, handling range widgets, alert popups, and virtual components. Testing on actual devices is important. Useful tools for accessibility development include custom message announcements, static analysis with JSX A11y, and accessibility testing with Chrome DevTools.

FAQ

Use ARIA live attribute to tell the screen reader that content will update, allowing it to read alert popups automatically when they appear on the screen.

Recommended tools include ESLint plugin JSX A11y for static analysis of accessibility issues, and Chrome DevTools for viewing accessibility trees and ARIA attributes.

For virtual components, use ARIA set size to define the total number of items and ARIA pos in set to define the current element's position, ensuring the screen reader reads the correct information.

Implement a solution using a span tag with an alert, where the announce function takes a message, sets it as the ARIA level value, and applies the attribute to the element, allowing custom message announcements.

Reading order is managed using the ARIA labeled by attribute, which identifies the level of an element. The screen reader reads the IDs in the order they appear, ensuring correct reading order.

The Enact framework is a React-based framework designed for TV UI components, developed by LG Electronics. It includes features like spatial navigation, accessibility, and internationalization, and is used in tens of millions of LG webOS TVs annually.

The Enact framework includes a module called Spotlight for TV remote direction keys, making all components keyboard navigable and meeting accessibility requirements.

The ARIA label is an attribute used to define a string that labels an interactive element, especially when there is no visible text or when you want different text to be read than what is visible on the screen.

ARIA value now defines the current value of a range widget, while ARIA value text provides a human-readable text alternative. If both are present, the screen reader reads the ARIA value text.

Seungho Park
Seungho Park
10 min
22 Nov, 2024

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