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a11y: Provide message delivery status through VoiceOver #6068

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@kinoroy kinoroy commented Jun 14, 2025

First time contributor checklist

Contributor checklist

  • My commits are rebased on the latest main branch
  • My commits are in nice logical chunks
  • My contribution is fully baked and is ready to be merged as is
  • I have tested my contribution on these devices:
  • iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18.5
  • Simulator, iOS 18.2

Description

This commit modifies the accessibility label for an outgoing message to provide information on the message delivery status (delivered, sent, read, etc):

A screenshot of the Xcode accessibility inspector overlaid on top of a iPhone simulator running Signal. The accessibility inspector is highlighting a message, the accessibility label reads 'You sent: Test, 42 minutes ago, Read'

This has been reported in multiple issues by VoiceOver users and in the Signal forums:

It seems based on comments in the code that the omission of this data was on purpose to keep the accessibility label short. I would suggest that users who rely on VoiceOver deserve to get the same level of information that can be obtained by sighted users who are glancing at the message.

Omitting this info from the accessibility label forces VoiceOver users to drill down into submenus and navigate to the message details screen, something a sighted person doesn't have to do to obtain the same information.

By placing this information at the end of the accessibility label, the user can choose to skip to the next element and stop listening if they don't wish to hear this extra information.

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