Oracle Accessibility Conformance Report

• Images that convey information have meaningful alternative text using ALT
• Images that are decorative are marked up using ALT=”” or CSS background images
• Controls have an associated name
• Non-text characters are not used or have meaningful alternative text

• There is no pre-recorded audio only or video only content.

The product was tested for:

• No Pre-recorded video content is being used.

Exceptions:

Affecting Documentation:

• Videos on the Application Express YouTube channel are missing closed captions. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29370906.

• No pre-recorded video is being used

• No live audio content in video is being used

• No pre-recorded video is being used

The product was tested for:

• User interface component labels are associated with the fields they are labeling
• Headings are encoded with HTML heading tags
• List markup is used for marking up lists
• Table markup is used for marking up data tables, including row and column headers and table summaries where appropriate
• Data tables specify ARIA-LABEL or SUMMARY
• Layout tables use appropriate markup
• Groups of components are marked up with their description
• Style sheets are used only to change the layout and presentation on the screen

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment and Database Applications:

• In the Faceted Search region component, the form controls displayed for a facet should be grouped by the facet label to provide extra context. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30380808.
• The Markdown item type is not correctly labelled. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30902322.

Affecting Development Environment:

• The 'Quick Edit' and 'Live Template Options' features, available as a developer of an application via the developer toolbar, are inaccessible to screen readers user. You can use quick edit with keyboard-alone, where the cursor keys allow you to navigate through the runtime page and select the page component you wish to edit, however these components do not have any accessible label, meaning screen readers will not be able to identify them. Because Live Template Options is available via the Quick Edit feature, then this also means this is not accessible to screen reader users. Screen readers users will need to navigate to components to edit via the App Builder in the traditional way, so without the convenience of being able to go straight to a component to edit from the runtime. Also Template Options will need to be edited in the App Builder and saved, and then the page refreshed to see the effect of the change in the runtime, so without the convenience of the Live Template Option feature. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25153940.

• In many places across the development environment, the BOLD tag is used to emphasize text. This should be replaced with the STRONG tag. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29347790.

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• Classic and Interactive report regions of Application Express currently have no declarative way of defining row headers. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 14198644.
• The modern inline date pickers are not usable with screen readers or magnification due to focus not being set correctly. The data table is also missing a caption or summary text to describe the data in the table. Users can however enter the date manually into the date input field. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 9740473.
• In the Popup LOV item component, when displaying multiple columns in the search results, although the results are announced as a data table, the table is missing an accessible label. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30375933.
• APEX provides two main ways in which page items can be rendered as non-editable, firstly the 'Display Only' item type, and secondly any item type whose 'Read-only' condition evaluates to true. For both of these scenarios, APEX renders a SPAN visually displaying the value of the item. Because this is not an HTML form element, this information could be missed by users of Assistive Technology. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 31200377.
• LABEL elements for page items in APEX are always rendered, irrespective of which item type is used. This is fine for page items that use form elements such as text fields, select lists or textareas, however this is incorrect use of HTML for other item types (for example radio groups, checkboxes). This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 31205979.

• The sequence of elements in the DOM matches a logical reading sequence

• Instructions provided do not refer to things solely based on their sensory characteristics such as shape, size, visual location, orientation, color, or sound

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

• Information conveyed by color is available in alternative formats, such as shape, text, font weight

• No automatically playing audio is used

The product was tested for:

• Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1
• Other text and images of text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Exceptions:

Affecting Documentation:

• The 'JavaScript API Reference' chapter of the documentation has text that does not meet the minimum contrast requirements. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29370357.

• Text can be resized up to 200% without loss of content or functionality

• Images of text are only used when the technology can't create the desired visual presentation, the image can be customized or the particular image is essential

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

The product was tested for:

• Ability to perform functions from the keyboard only, and without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes
• Proper operation of unique keystrokes and access keys, including those listed in the product documentation
• The ability to use the product with OS keyboard aids: StickyKeys and FilterKeys (feature names may be different on different platforms)

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment and Database Applications:

• Although icon buttons used in our development environment and in Database Applications have an accessible name (using ARIA-LABEL), they also have a TITLE attribute which displays to mouse users on hover, however keyboard users have no way of perceiving this text. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 28293186
• In the Interactive Grid region component, when the grid is editable and displaying 'Single Row View', form controls are no longer in the tab order if 'Exclude Null Values' is selected. Users can workaround this by switching to 'Grid View'. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25164412.
• In the Interactive Grid region component, when 'Single Row View' is selected, columns with custom markup containing links or buttons cannot be activated and may contain extra hidden tab stops. Users can workaround this by switching to 'Grid View'. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25245829.
• In the Faceted Search region component, users have no easy way to navigate with keyboard from the facet region to the results region, other than tabbing through all the facet controls. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30380719.

Affecting Database Applications:

• When using the Universal Theme, a developer has two choices for the app's navigation menu system, 'Top', and 'Side'. When using 'Side' navigation, the app's navigation will appear in a tree structure on the side of the page. In addition, the end user has the option to expand or collapse the navigation menu, using a toggle button on the page. This expand / collapse functionality has two further developer options, 'Hidden' (the default) where the collapsed state actually hides the navigation menu completely, and 'Icon', where the navigation menu just collapses down to icons. When using the 'Icon' option, the icons cannot receive keyboard focus. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 31112489. A keyboard user can workaround this by expanding the navigation menu, to be able to interact with it.

• Movement of focus through each control only using the keyboard, with no "keyboard trap" that prevents focus from moving away from any control

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

The product was tested for:

• Time limits in the product can be turned off before they are encountered

• There is no moving, blinking or scrolling content

• No portion of the screen flickers or flashes with a frequency between 2 Hz and 55 Hz

The product was tested for:

• A ‘Skip to Main Content’ link is provided to skip repetitive navigation links at the top of the page.
• Structure and hierarchy is marked up with Header elements outside of repetitive navigation links
• WAI-ARIA Landmark elements are used outside of repetitive navigation links

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment and Websheet Applications:

• There are no 'Skip to Main Content' links implemented for the Development Environment, or in Websheet Applications. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 27782291.

• Pages have a meaningful title specified in the TITLE element

The product was tested for:

• Logical movement through the focusable components using only the keyboard, in an order that follows a meaningful sequence

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• When a validation fails on a form page, although the error will be announced to screen readers, we do not explicitly set the focus to help the user more quickly deal with fixing the errors. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 26878709.

The product was tested for:

• The text of links and their surrounding paragraph, list, table cell (with marked up table headers), or preceding heading is sufficient to describe their purpose

Exceptions:

Affecting Database Applications:

• In a Database Application using the Universal Theme, when the 'Card' report template has the template option 'Display Subtitle' unchecked, this results in the text "#CARD_SUBTITLE#" still being rendered in the link text. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29348961.
• The 'HTML 5 Bar Chart' region plug-in used in the development environment, and in the Packaged Apps renders links with confusing link text and structure, where multiple links with different link text all go to the same link target. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30902888.

• Pages are fully inter-linked to each other
• Pages can be found using the provided "search" function
• Page contains controls that enable reaching all pages

The product was tested for:

• Headers describe the topic or purpose of the content below them
• Labels describe the purpose of the associated field

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment:

• In Page Designer (where developers build and edit pages in APEX), the current heading structure needs improving to improve usability for users of Assistive Technology. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 27782249.
• One of the administration pages for the Attribute Dictionary in APEX contains a 'Check All' style checkbox in the report's column header, which is missing label text. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20310474.

Affecting Database Applications and Development Environment:

• In the Interactive Grid region component, some form fields rendered have either no label, or labels that require improvement. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25153552.

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• Rendering a native check box item renders a DIV with role="group" that acts as a container for the group of check boxes and an ARIA-LABELLEDBY attribute providing the label for the group. This works well for check boxes that have more than one check box in the group, but when the check box only has one check box, it is incorrect to render this grouping markup. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 18188460.
• Native checkbox and radio group item types contain duplicate labelling. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 27810346.
• Native textarea item types contain duplicate labelling. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 31200582.

The product was tested for:

• Visual indication of the location of the focus

Exceptions

Affecting Development Environment and Database Applications:

• In the Interactive Grid region component, some interactive controls do not show focus. This issue is tracked with Oracle bugs 25153460 and 25162731.
• In the Interactive Grid region component, additional hidden tab stops are present after a configuration dialog has been opened. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25245934.

Affecting Database Applications:

• The Tab Container region template which is used to render regions on a page as tabs, contains a 'tablist' element that does not show keyboard focus. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30515581.

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

This product has not yet been evaluated for this criteria

• Properly set lang attribute for each page

• Proper use of lang attribute for text passages that are in a different language than that of the page

• When an element receives focus, it does not result in a substantial change to the page, an additional change of keyboard focus, or the spawning of a pop-up window

• Changes in the value of user interface components does not result in a substantial change to the page, an additional change of keyboard focus, or the spawning of a pop-up window
• In circumstances where changing the value of the components causes a substantial change to the page, an additional change of keyboard focus, or the spawning of a pop-up window, warning is given prior to the user interacting with those user-interface components

• Pages that are grouped together into sets with a common navigation mechanism utilize that navigation mechanism in the same fashion, with navigation elements appearing in the same relative order each time

• Images and controls are used and identified consistently throughout the product

The product was tested for:

• When input errors are detected, they are described to the user in text, including identifying the item where the error occurred

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• Errors displayed in Interactive Report dialogs (for example when attempting to save a Filter with an empty 'Expression' value) just display a red border around the field in error, with no text explaining what the error is. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20697217.
• When defining validations in APEX, the developer has the choice to define the 'Display Location' for the associated error message. This can either be 'Inline with Field and in Notification' (default), 'Inline with Field', 'Inline in Notification' or 'On Error Page'. When using the 'Inline with Field' location (where the error message will just appear next to the item with the error), a screen reader user is not notified that the error has occurred. So after submitting the form, the user would just stay on the same page, and would have to go back through the form fields and listen for details of any items with errors (which does with a screen reader because the error message is programmatically associated with the relevant page item). This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 31205839. To workaround this issue, developers should select any location including the 'Notification' position.

• Labels or instructions are provided when the product requires user input

• Where suggestions for fixing an input error are known, they are provided to the user

• Data is checked for input errors with an opportunity for the user to correct them
• When using the component creation wizards, the component data can be reviewed, corrected, and confirmed by the user before it is finalized

The product was tested for:

• Elements in HTML content have complete start and end tags, are properly nested, do not contain duplicate attributes, and have unique IDs

Exceptions:

Affecting Database Applications:

• If more than one Interactive Report Region are defined on one page, where more than one of those define a 'Link' column, then the 'Link' column heading rendered will contain duplicate ID values of 'LINK'. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20687795.

The product was tested for:

• HTML controls have a programmatically associated name, derived from the appropriate HTML elements and attributes including LABEL, TITLE, SUMMARY, CAPTION, etc.
• Additional state information is programmatically exposed for HTML controls, such as whether a field is ‘required’ or 'invalid'
• Custom controls have appropriate roles specified using the role attribute
• Custom controls have appropriate state and property information conveyed using the relevant WAI-ARIA or HTML5 attributes
• Custom controls have a meaningful programatically exposed name
• Frames have a meaningful title specified in the title attribute

Exceptions:

Affecting Database Applications:

• The Tab Container region template which is used to render regions on a page as tabs, contains a 'tablist' element that is not labelled. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30515581.

Affecting Development Environment:

• The Code Editor item type, which is used in many places to enter SQL, PL/SQL and JavaScript code includes an auto-complete feature, providing suggestions specific to the code type. For example, in SQL and PL/SQL auto-complete provides suggestions of database objects, or page item names defined in the application that may need to be referenced from the code. The auto-complete functionality is not conveyed to assistive technologies. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20696803.

• Currently in the Property Editor, the display groups are marked up as DIV elements that are focusable with the keyboard. When focused, users can navigate between display groups with the Up and Down arrow keys, which aids keyboard support of the Property Editor. However, when the DIV is focused, screen readers can announce the display group title twice, and in addition can fail to announce the ARIA expanded state when the display group first gets focus (however, it is announced upon expand or collapse). This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20693220.

• In Page Designer, it is possible to edit multiple components at the same time, however when using a screen reader, there is no indication that multiple items are selected. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29283988.

• In Page Designer, the splitter controls used to manage layout are poorly labelled and are missing ARIA-CONTROLS to point to relevant page area. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 20693603.

Affecting Development Environment and Database Applications:

• When logging into a workspace, or a Database Application using an appropriate authentication scheme, if the instance is set to have a delay for failed login attempts (setting in Instance Admin > Security > General Settings > Delay after failed login attempts in Seconds), and the user enters incorrect login details, a notification displays that includes a count down of the number of seconds before they can attempt logging in again. This count down is not announced properly to screen reader users. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 29348302.
• The List View of the native Calendar region type uses DIVs with WAI-ARIA headings for the event list, however this should be implemented using more structured HTML. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 27941145.
• Some configurations of 'required' attributes produce inconsistent output by screen readers, and may confuse users of assistive technology. This can lead to inconsistencies in what is emitted, and possibly confuse a user of Assistive Technology. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 23761182.
• In the Interactive Grid region component, when the grid is editable, some inline errors are not discernible to screen reader users. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 25153917.
• The Faceted Search region component requires better notifications of partial page updates for screen reader users. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30380762.
• The Markdown item type renders a custom editor for defining the markdown. Screen readers can miss details of some text entered into the editor. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30902322.

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• In the Popup LOV item component, search results visually highlight the searched text, however this causes screen readers to no longer read the searched word naturally, and instead the characters will be separated by the searched text and non-searched text. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30375933.
• In the Popup LOV item component, when displaying multiple columns in the search results, extra 'No results found' text will be incorrectly announced to screen readers. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30375933.
• When Modal Dialogs are used, the non-modal dialog content is not hidden to screen reader users. This issue is tracked with Oracle bug 30666675.

The product was tested for:

• Status messages have role or properties set so information is conveyed to assistive technology without the component receiving focus.

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• APEX success messages can either be displayed following a full page load (common when navigating to a new page following a successful action), or dynamically on the same page (common when closing a dialog page where a successful action took place). For the 'full page load' scenario, the success message is displayed in an H2 and is defined with an ARIA role of ALERT, however the message is not automatically announced to a screen reader because it is part of the full page load, rather than being shown dynamically on the page. This means that in the full page load scenario, screen readers would not have the message immediately announced, and instead would only infer their action has been successful by inspecting the headings of the page. This issue is tracke with Oracle bug 31200186.

The product does not provide a multimedia player.

The product does not provide a multimedia player.

See the responses in the WCAG 2.0 section of this report.

The product contains no instance of either converting content from one format to another, or saving content in multiple formats.

The product was tested for:

• PDF files conform to PDF/UA-1
• Where a component supports it, the 'Include Accessibility Tags' option should be checked when exporting to PDF. This is currently supported with the Interactive Grid native region type.

Exceptions:

Affecting Development Environment, Websheet Applications and Database Applications:

• With the exception of the Interactive Grid, all other native region types export PDF that is not accessible.

We mandate certain accessibility related attributes when building APEX applications (for example page titles, region titles, and button labels). The developer is responsible for ensuring the text provided is appropriate and meaningful.

APEX includes a built-in tool called the Advisor, which can be run by developers as part of quality assurance of an APEX application. To help with other non-mandatory attributes defined by a developer, the Advisor includes a set of accessibility checks to highlight possible common accessibility problems (for example page items with no labels, or page regions with no row headers defined). The developer should review and fix such problems as part of their ongoing development process. We recommend to fix issues identified by the Advisor before doing other accessibility testing, for example testing with Assistive Technologies.

Developers should use the default 'Universal Theme' when building applications in APEX. This theme contains templates for different component types, which have been accessibility tested. In addition, developers can select different 'Theme Styles' for styling their applications in different ways. Theme Styles are labelled as being 'Accessibility Tested' if they have undergone accessibility testing. The default 'Vita' is accessibility tested.

The product documentation describes:

• Accessibility Guide, dedicated to helping you both use APEX, and build APEX apps that meet accessibility guidelines.
• Special keystrokes needed to operate controls

Please visit the APEX documentation homepage and then select 'Accessibility'.

Documentation is provided in electronic formats.