Description not announced by Voiceover when following links targeting selects or file inputs

[36degrees]

Upstream bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191749#c0
Date: 2018-11-16
Reported by: Oliver Byford
Related to: alphagov/govuk-frontend#1056 (comment)

---

Overview

This may well affect other types of inputs, but more severe bugs affecting text inputs, text areas, radio buttons and checkboxes (191746, 191748) means it's impossible to tell.

Given the following markup:

  <a href="#select">Link to select</a><br>
  <a href="#file">Link to input type="file"</a>

  <br><br>

  <label for="select">Label for select</label><br>
  <span id="select-description">Description for select</span><br>
  <select id="select" name="select" aria-describedby="select-description">
    <option value="one" selected>Option one</option>
    <option value="two">Option two</option>
    <option value="three">Option three</option>
  </select>

  <br><br>

  <label for="file">Label for file upload</label>
  <span id="file-description">Description for file upload</span>
  <input id="file" name="file" type="file" aria-describedby="file-description">

Focus the link to each input type and activate it by double-tapping.

For the link to the select:

Expected behaviour:

Voiceover should include the description associated using aria-describedby, as it does when focusing the element by swiping through the document:

"Legend for select, option one, popup button. Description for select. Double-tap to active the picker"

Actual behaviour:

Voiceover does not include the description as part of the announcement, nor the instruction 'Double-tap to activate the picker':

"Legend for select, option one, popup button."

For the link to file input:

Expected behaviour:

Voiceover should include the description associated using aria-describedby, as it does when focusing the element by swiping through the document:

"Label for file upload, no file selected, button. Description for file upload."

Actual behaviour:

Voiceover does not include the description as part of the announcement, nor the fact that the focussed element is a button:

"Label for file upload, no file selected."

Tested in iOS 12.1 (16B92) on an iPhone X (A1901)