Which VoiceOver?

You may have seen this as a thread on Mastodon (my primary social short-form platform) or on BlueSky. Imagine these as the opening to a series of conversations between a vendor or client or boss or PO or whomever and me.

Variations on Real Life Conversations

“We like the way <figure> announces with VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• <figure> in VO macOS (anchor)
• <figure> in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We like the way description lists work with VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• description lists in VO macOS (anchor)
• description lists in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We like the way aria-readonly is handled by VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• aria-readonly in VO macOS (anchor)
• aria-readonly in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We want it to work like title does with VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• title in VO macOS (anchor)
• title in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We like how video full-screen and picture-in-picture is done in VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• full-screen and PiP in VO macOS (anchor)
• full-screen and PiP in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We use this error message approach because we prefer it in VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• errors in VO macOS (text link)
• errors in VO iPadOS (text link)

“We use the WHATWG pattern for blockquotes because we prefer it in VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• blockquotes in VO macOS (text link)
• blockquotes in VO iPadOS (text link)

“We’re replacing fieldsets with group roles because support is good in VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• group roles in VO macOS (text link)
• group roles in VO iPadOS (anchor)

“We’re using <del> for stricken text because it gets announced in VoiceOver.”

“Ok, which VoiceOver?”

• <del> in VO macOS (text link)
• <del> in VO iPadOS (text link)
• I haven’t even touched on the Braille emulator throughout all this (text link).

Takeaways

Remember that VoiceOver on macOS is different than VoiceOver on iOS. Maybe even different than VoiceOver on iPadOS, or any other iDevice platform. That’s for you to test if those announcements and behaviors and bugs are so important to you. This post does not care why they are different. This post only shares the end-user experience.

By no means are my examples exhaustive. Nor are they constant. Safari gets updates, the operating systems get updates, VoiceOver gets updates, bugs occur, regressions happen, preferences change, specs change, and so on. Relying on a preferred behavior on one Apple platform is risky, though whether it’s riskier than relying on a behavior on any platform is an exercise for the reader.