Hello everyone.
I am writing to enquire why notifications of comments been posted or otherwise have disappeared? I am unsure when this started happening. As of this writing the only way I know my comment has been posted is by locating the heading of said comment. Before, at the top of the page it would indicate that my comment has been posted through a status message.
Thank you in advance for shedding some light on this. I await your reply.
Comments
Working on Status Messages
Hi Christopher,
First, our apologies for the issues you are experiencing.
We are in the process of making improvements to how status messages work--mainly, in addition to displaying at the top of the page, we want screen readers to announce them without the user having to do anything or move focus. This is proving to be more difficult than we expected because screen readers do not behave uniformly, but our developer is continuing to refine this amongst other projects we have going.
The current expected behavior is that status messages will display in the tab order right after the language translation widget. Since these are informational messages only and require no user action, the "close" button has been removed.
What browser and screen reader are you using? I will attempt to reproduce this if possible so we can try and isolate the issue.
Thanks,
Michael
Re: Working On Status Messages
Hi Michael.
Thank you for working on these status messages. I am currently using Safari on the iPhone 16+ running iOS 26.5.1.
Thanks again, Christopher.
Confirming
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for this - I will test on my iPhone. Just confirming that what you are seeing is that status messages are not displaying at all?
Re: Confirming
Hi Michael.
Now I was informed where the status message is, I can see it at my end, next to language translation as stipulated. Without this information, I would not have known.
Thank you, Christopher.
What Was Your Previous Workflow?
Hi Christopher,
Glad status messages are working for you now, but now I am curious... What was your previous workflow and where were the status messages displaying previously? I didn't think the location had changed but now I am thinking I might not understand the issue you reported. Were they speaking for you automatically?
Re: What Was Your Previous Workflow?
Hi Michael.
Since I navigate web pages by heading in most cases, I expected the words 'Status Message' as a heading, followed by the words 'your comment has been posted.', which was the case before this change.
I hope this helps, Christopher.
Definitely
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for this detail. This is definitely helpful.
Design is not finalized - our whole goal is to make the feature better and certainly not to make things harder. Would an auto-speaking status message serve the same purpose for you, or is your preference still for a heading level 2 before the status message?
Re: Definitely
Hi Michael.
I think we should have the best of both worlds. For configurations where the screen reader will not announce the status message automatically, notify the fact with a heading level 2 besides it.
Once again I hope this helps.
Thank you in advance for your consideration, Christopher.
For what it's worth
Make sure you have enabled,Live Regions & Announcements, for Safari. I am currently running iOS 18.7.8 on my iPhone, and whenever I make a new post, a new comment, or edit a comment I've made in the past, voiceover will focus on the little update message at the top of the page. Every time for me.
HTH.
Re: For What It's Worth
This is a feature I often overlook. For example, the feature is terrible on amazon.co.uk in my case as a UK resident, yet it's great on here. Thanks Bryan!
Selective websites
If you use the VoiceOver Quick Settings feature, you can literally choose which websites use this feature and which websites do not.
Example: when I am on this very website, and I activate quick settings, and scroll down to ,Live Regions & Announcements, it will read as, ,Live Regions & Announcements(AppleVis.com), on.
So, when you are on the Amazon website, you can activate Quick Settings, and disable , Live Regions & Announcements, for that particular website.
HTH.