Possible to programmatically suppress the reading of a textarea?

Question

My first attempt at accessibility is a daunting one. I've built a site where customers "chat" with an agent, much of the content obviously being dynamic/AJAX. I'm using Window-Eyes 7.5 for my testing.

For incoming messages I just add "role=alert" and "aria-live=polite" to the new DIVs and the screenreader reads incoming text as I would expect. However, if I happen to be typing in the textarea where I'd send comments, the screenreader abruptly cuts off and reads my typing instead.

Is this solely up to the configuration of Window-Eyes? Is there any programmatic way I can either 1) suppress reading of the textarea, or 2) enforce queueing of some sort so that new messages are fully read? Note that switching focus isn't an option in this case.

Answer 1

There is no way I know of to force text to be read while the user is typing in either Jaws, or NVDA. I assume this holds true for Window Eyes but even if it doesn’t you should assume a user typing will stop automatic speaking of text to be compatible with as many screen readers as possible. Most screen reader users will know that typing will stop automatic speaking of updated content, and they will review the last several messages to make sure they didn't miss anything while typing. If you are concerned about the user not realizing a new message arrived you might want to play a sound whenever a message is received. This way when the user is typing they will know they have messages to review even though they weren’t read out.