In IE11 JAWS reads alert text nearly three times if it contains an anchor tag

Question

I'm updating an alert message in my application. When testing in IE11 and the updated alert is only text, JAWS reads it twice. We've decided this is acceptable, because it can't be fixed so far. My text-only error message is:

<span id="error" role="alert" aria-live="assertive">
    We have a very important message for you!
</span>

My issue is that when the updated alert has text which also has an anchor tag, the alert is read nearly three times. "Nearly three times" because it is read twice, and then a third time where it stops reading after the anchor tag. My anchor-tagged alert message is:

<span id="error" role="alert" aria-live="assertive">
    We have a very important message for you!  <a href="#">Click here</a> for more information.
</span>

Here is a jsfiddle where the issue can be tested: http://jsfiddle.net/W4Km8/5851/

My version of IE is 11.0.9600.17801, and JAWS is 16.0.2339.

Could you fine people take a look?

Answer 1

Add Role=application to span and also add aria-describedby='error' attribute to button.

Please do the above changes. It will work.

Answer 2

I get the behavior you describe with JAWS 16 and IE 11. It works great in Firefox, though. The alert is only read once. I couldn't get it to work in Chrome.

JSFiddle is useless with VoiceOver on the iPad. I can't navigate to the alert buttons to test your example. All the "hidden" objects in the left navigation panel are visible to VO. While you only see one section expanded at a time (framework, fiddle options, external resources, etc), all the sections are essentially expanded to VO because jsfiddle is not using aria-hidden.

If you change your example to use aria-live='polite' then it works fine in IE.