Accessibility Check fail when using TextInputLayout

Question

I'm using the new TextInputLayout provided by Android.support to do floating label. But it will fail Espresso Accessibility Check because "View is missing speakable text needed for a screen reader".

Looked into it and find out the TextInputLayout will nullify hint when parent does addView(). This is basically how it can float the label up(set the label, nullify the hint). And any EditText with null hint will fail the accessibility check.

Anyone knows how to resolve this issue? It's really driving me crazy..

Thanks a lot!!!!

Answer 1

A great way to make TextInputLayout accessible is to use "LabelFor" as recommanded by ChrisCM, but you don't have to add an invisible label view to do so: Just put the labelFor or your Textinputlayout and make it point to your EditText

Example:

<android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout
  android:labelFor="@+id/username"
  android:contentDescription="@string/username_hint"
  android:accessibilityLiveRegion="polite">
    <edittext
      android:id="@+id/username"
      android:hint="@string/username_hint"
       …/>
</android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout>

This way you get the exact same visual behaviour and make "Espresso Accessibility Check" and Talkback happy :)

(To make TextInputLayout fully accessible I also added android:accessibilityliveregion on the TextInputLayout element to trigger talkback whenever the error is poping)

A big thanks to this post this blog post which helped a lot

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Answer 2

Hints aren't great for accessibility in general. They disappear when text is entered. Try using a "LabelFor" instead. If you don't want a visible label, you can set your label to not be displayed.

This app will give you hints on how to make text boxes accessible.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dequesystems.accessibility101