Accessibility issues

[AnaFerreira015]

Describe a related problem (optional)

I’m Ana Ferreira, a Master's student in Computer Science conducting research on mobile accessibility. While using URLCheck, I noticed that the text input fields (where URLs are entered) lack persistent visual labels or accessible instructions. Once a user starts typing, the hint disappears, which can confuse users with cognitive impairments or those using screen readers (violating WCAG 3.3.2). Additionally, the text in these fields does not scale properly when the system font size is increased, making long URLs hard to verify for low-vision users.

Describe your suggested feature

I suggest implementing Material Design's TextInputLayout for all URL input and display fields. This would provide:

1. Floating Labels: A persistent hint that remains visible above the field even after text is entered.
2. Scalable Text: Ensure the input text and its label use sp units and allow for vertical expansion to prevent truncation when font sizes are maximized (WCAG 1.4.4).
3. Proper Labeling: Ensuring each field is explicitly associated with an accessible name for TalkBack users.

Describe alternatives you've considered for your suggested feature

An alternative would be adding static TextView labels above every EditText. However, using TextInputLayout is a more modern, space-efficient, and standard Android approach that natively supports hints, error messages, and better accessibility integration.

Other details

During my analysis, I identified 5 other accessibility improvements for URLCheck:

• Missing Labels: Icons like "Clear" or "Check" are announced as "Unlabelled" by TalkBack.
• Duplicate Announcements: Redundant descriptions causing the screen reader to repeat information.
• Advisory Scaling: Issues when font size is set to minimum.

I am happy to provide detailed fixes or open separate tickets for these technical improvements if the maintainers prefer.

Acknowledgements

• I have searched the existing issues and this is a new ticket, NOT a duplicate or related to another open issue.
• I have written a short but informative title.
• I will fill out all of the requested information in this form.

[TrianguloY]

Hi Ana,

Thanks for the report and your interest on my app. I would appreciate some detailed feedback about those other issue too! I'll be happy to fix accessibility issues whenever possible.

But first, let me address the 'Material Design's TextInputLayout' suggestion.
Currently, the app doesn't have any external dependency or library, only the Android SDK. This is both a personal decision (I prefer to use the base tools) and an optimization one (libraries increase the app size, and most times they include things you don't need). The TextInputLayout is, unfortunately, not native, and requires a google library (same with AppCompat and related). If I include it, the app size doubles. It may not be much, but I explicitly want to avoid that. In any case, your alternative with a fixed textview may still be good, and most of the editText already have a textview above, so I can try to fit the hint there.

Now, lets see the issues one by one:

• Floating Labels: Explained in the paragraph above. Maybe I can try to add it myself, but honestly I think for now a separated textview should be enough. I'll also make sure that hints are not needed and what the editText represents can be understood from related elements.
• Scalable Text: Totally agree. In most cases I'm using the default theme size, but I am in fact overriding it in some specific elements. Not using sp is probably a mistake on my part. I'll try to fix those.
• Proper Labeling: I was aware of the accesibility label (called contentDescription) on images, and even buttons, but I wasn't aware that EditText also have it. I think I can reuse the hint for that purpose...I would like to avoid having too many small strings for translators (sometimes is necessary though).
• Missing Labels: related to the previous point. I do try to add the contentDescription to buttons, but sometimes I simply forget >.<
• Duplicate Announcements: Could you please provide an example of this one? I don't think I follow what you mean.
• Advisory Scaling: You mean to have a minimum font size? Or other issues if the device font is really small? Maybe a couple examples here can help me decide if there is something I can do, or if such a extreme scenario is unlikely to happen and trying to fix it would probably be worse for average users.

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Note: I'm going to rename this issue and create subissues for these points. Feel free to create more if needed.
Thanks!