Adding aria-selected to listbox option, NVDA does not read "selected"

[nvaccessAuto]

Reported by emallory on 2015-01-16 21:54
I have a listbox with several options. It is navigating using UP and DOWN arrows and I control this using javascript. When SPACE is pressed on an option, I add aria-selected='true' to indicate that the option has been selected. NVDA just reads "Space" and gives no indication that aria-selected has been added to the option.

Here's a jsfiddle that shows the issue: http://jsfiddle.net/elmal/3xce30z5/embedded/result/

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 1 by nvdakor on 2015-01-16 22:01
Hi,
Confirmed sort of in Firefox: if I use Internet Explorer (version 11), "selected" is announced, whereas in Firefox, nothing (or space) is announced. This is with latest next build (build 11501) with Firefox 34.
Does this happen with 2014.4 as well?
Thanks.

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 2 by emallory on 2015-01-16 22:12
Yes, I see the same thing. IE11 reads "Space Selected". Firefox reads "Space" or nothing.

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 3 by jteh on 2015-01-18 23:23
This is actually Firefox behaviour. However, I believe it to be correct. From the ARIA spec regarding aria-selected:

If no DOM element in the widget is explicitly marked as selected, assistive technologies MAY convey implicit selection which follows the keyboard focus of the managed focus widget.

So, because the item is focused, it's already implicitly selected. Therefore, setting aria-selected="true" doesn't change anything and thus NVDA doesn't announce any change. If you want the item to be unselected when focused, you need to explicitly set aria-selected="false".

Please reopen if you can provide evidence as to why this is incorrect behaviour.
Changes:
Added labels: invalid
State: closed