Replaces the `title` attributes used by revision inline diff annotations with `aria-describedby` by shail-mehta · Pull Request #80440 · WordPress/gutenberg

shail-mehta · 2026-07-18T02:34:58Z

What?

Part of #77530
This PR replaces the title attributes used by revision inline diff annotations with aria-describedby.

Why?

The revision diff markers currently rely on the title attribute to provide additional context to assistive technologies. However, title is not announced consistently by screen readers, particularly when users enable low-verbosity or text-only reading modes. As a result, the descriptions for inline diff markers may not be conveyed reliably, reducing the accessibility of the revisions interface.

How?

This PR introduces a small set of shared visually hidden description elements within the revisions canvas and updates inline diff annotations (<ins>, <del>, and formatting change markers) to reference them via aria-describedby instead of title.

Testing Instructions

Create a post, and iterate it several times to create revisions.
Navigate through the cited features using keyboard and a screen reader.

Use of AI Tools

Yes (inline comments)

github-actions · 2026-07-18T02:39:42Z

Size Change: +264 B (0%)

Total Size: 7.75 MB

📦 View Changed

Filename	Size	Change
`build/scripts/editor/index.min.js`	500 kB	+264 B (+0.05%)

_{compressed-size-action}

github-actions · 2026-07-18T04:17:53Z

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

If you're merging code through a pull request on GitHub, copy and paste the following into the bottom of the merge commit message.

Co-authored-by: shail-mehta <shailu25@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: joedolson <joedolson@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: ellatrix <ellatrix@git.wordpress.org>

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github-actions · 2026-07-18T04:31:13Z

Flaky tests detected in 35e44fc.
Some tests passed with failed attempts. The failures may not be related to this commit but are still reported for visibility. See the documentation for more information.

🔍 Workflow run URL: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/actions/runs/29639024102
📝 Reported issues:

[Flaky Test] persists table layout across all tabs with unified view persistence #80156 in /test/e2e/specs/site-editor/pages-view-persistence.spec.js

joedolson

This works well, on the del and ins elements, but it loses some information that's currently available - for format changes, it loses the information counting those changes.

I'm not sure that's super valuable information, but it probably needs some consideration. Given that the format changes don't say anything about what has changed, just a generic count, I'm not sure they were ever really useful.

joedolson · 2026-07-19T16:52:54Z

 					attributes: {
 						content:
-							'<span title="1 format removed" class="revision-diff-format-removed">Bold</span> and <span title="1 format removed" class="revision-diff-format-removed">italic</span> text',
+							'<span aria-describedby="revision-diff-format-removed-desc" class="revision-diff-format-removed">Bold</span> and <span aria-describedby="revision-diff-format-removed-desc" class="revision-diff-format-removed">italic</span> text',


This should also change to mark instead of span, as accessible names are generally ignored on span elements. (This was also true for the title attribute; I missed mentioning it in the related issue.)

joedolson · 2026-07-19T16:53:20Z

 					attributes: {
 						content:
-							'Hello <em><span title="1 format added, 1 format removed" class="revision-diff-format-changed">world</span></em>',
+							'Hello <em><span aria-describedby="revision-diff-format-changed-desc" class="revision-diff-format-changed">world</span></em>',


Another case to change to mark

joedolson · 2026-07-19T17:19:14Z

@ellatrix How important do you think the change counts are on format changes for inline diffs? I'm not convinced they provide a lot of value there. If they do, it just means that the describedby containers will get more complex, needing to contain a unique reference for every format change diff.

I also did a test of aria-description, because that would be a much simpler resolution. Historically, it hasn't been available, so it needs testing.

Test case: https://codepen.io/editor/joedolson/pen/019f7b55-f86f-775b-81af-f350e734001b

NVDA/Firefox, NVDA/Chrome, and NVDA/Edge all worked fine for mark, del, and ins.

JAWS 2023/Firefox, JAWS 2023/Chrome and JAWS 2023/Edge all failed. This is an older version of JAWS, but due to the high cost of JAWS, that data is still relevant in terms of user experience.

VoiceOver/MacOS - failed.

Unfortunately, still not available due to poor support.

ellatrix · 2026-07-20T05:58:58Z

Feel free to change it. It would be better to be more descriptive anyway: e.g. link has been added, bold has been removed.

joedolson · 2026-07-20T15:43:55Z

@shail-mehta Given @ellatrix's comments, I think it's OK to eliminate the format change counts, as you have. It would be nice to have better information in a future iteration, but given that the current details are just not all that valuable, it keeps this iteration simpler not to try and make them diff unique.

shail-mehta · 2026-07-21T03:28:27Z

Thank you both! I'll work on this.

shail-mehta · 2026-07-21T17:18:24Z

@joedolson I've addressed the feedback in the latest commit. When you have a chance, could you please take another look and let me know if any further changes are needed?

…ons with `aria-describedby` (#80440) * Replace revision diff attributes with * Check Unit test * Check Unit test * Apply Feedback Changes Co-authored-by: shail-mehta <shailu25@git.wordpress.org> Co-authored-by: joedolson <joedolson@git.wordpress.org> Co-authored-by: ellatrix <ellatrix@git.wordpress.org>

github-actions · 2026-07-22T02:21:37Z

I just cherry-picked this PR to the wp/7.1 branch to get it included in the next release: 5f08285

…ons with `aria-describedby` (#80440) * Replace revision diff attributes with * Check Unit test * Check Unit test * Apply Feedback Changes Co-authored-by: shail-mehta <shailu25@git.wordpress.org> Co-authored-by: joedolson <joedolson@git.wordpress.org> Co-authored-by: ellatrix <ellatrix@git.wordpress.org>

t-hamano · 2026-07-22T10:13:00Z

I just cherry-picked this PR to the release/23.6 branch to get it included in the next release: df7d066

@SInCE

This updates the pinned commit hash of the Gutenberg repository from `e73c3c481db0650183f092af157f6e42efe9ee2d` to `4997026b75c922d8a6f77a03d72ed7cad04c7073`. A full list of changes included in this commit can be found on GitHub: WordPress/gutenberg@e73c3c4...4997026 - Notes: Replace blur-deselect bookkeeping with useFocusOutside (WordPress/gutenberg#80222) - Playlist: Update @SInCE tags to 7.1.0 (WordPress/gutenberg#80317) - fix playlist block Dimensions Design (WordPress/gutenberg#80312) - UI: Backport compat overlay fixes to WordPress 7.1 (WordPress/gutenberg#80322) - Editor: allow selecting which block styles to apply globally (WordPress/gutenberg#79839) - Global Styles: Reject non-string custom CSS in the REST controller (WordPress/gutenberg#80338) - Open inspector sidebar when toggling responsive editing (WordPress/gutenberg#80307) - Client Side Media: Honor image_strip_meta and image_max_bit_depth on the client upload path (WordPress/gutenberg#80218) - Hide block style variations when state is enabled in global styles (WordPress/gutenberg#80341) - Media REST API: Fix sideload and finalize for EXIF rotated images (WordPress/gutenberg#80295) - Fix upload snackbar stuck in uploading state on server-side uploads (WordPress/gutenberg#80345) - Try fixing responsive layout in Nav block (WordPress/gutenberg#80305) - Responsive styles: Use viewport dropdown to control states for in-editor global styles sidebar (WordPress/gutenberg#80339) - RichTextControl: Replace DOM focus tracking with a single React-tree focus boundary (WordPress/gutenberg#80324) - Notes: Finish WPDS treatment for mention chips (WordPress/gutenberg#80300) - Notes: Add placeholders to the RichText fields (WordPress/gutenberg#80296) - Fix upload hang when converting long animated GIFs: decode only the first frame for still outputs (WordPress/gutenberg#80260) (WordPress/gutenberg#80342) - Device preview dropdown: use active color for device icon when responsive styles are active (WordPress/gutenberg#80346) - Fix default aspect ratio for lazy loaded Featured image (WordPress/gutenberg#80386) - Vips/upload-media: consolidate optional params into options objects (WordPress/gutenberg#80330) - Autocompleters: Don't pre-encode mention search terms (WordPress/gutenberg#80377) - Animated GIF uploads: generate sub-sizes from the first frame, matching core (WordPress/gutenberg#80268) - Custom CSS: Fix cascade order against block style variations (WordPress/gutenberg#80340) - Rich Text: Restore the selection when focus returns to the editable (WordPress/gutenberg#80396) - Notes: Arm the mention kses allowance on REST note creation (WordPress/gutenberg#80221) - Fix upload snackbar double-counting a single HEIC upload in Safari (WordPress/gutenberg#80436) - ContentEditableControl: fix invalid label association with contenteditable div (WordPress/gutenberg#80441) - Editor: Disable canvas resizing while zoomed out (WordPress/gutenberg#80391) - Fix Color Picker Cursor Shaking Issue (WordPress/gutenberg#80205) (WordPress/gutenberg#80435) - Misc fixes for WordPress-Develop 7.0 merges (WordPress/gutenberg#80444) - Style Book: Restore live global styles updates on the styles route (WordPress/gutenberg#80459) - Worker threads: reject pending RPC calls on worker failure or termination (WordPress/gutenberg#79955) (WordPress/gutenberg#80421) - Media: Add timeout and size guardrails to client-side GIF to video conversion (WordPress/gutenberg#80420) - Post Content: Use the default block appender for empty content (WordPress/gutenberg#80026) - Block Supports: Handle nested array block gap values properly (WordPress/gutenberg#80464) - Editor: Restore fixed device preview height for mobile and tablet (WordPress/gutenberg#80466) - Block Editor: Guard against non-string spacing preset values (WordPress/gutenberg#80467) - Writing flow: fully select the ancestor when a text selection crosses a nesting boundary (WordPress/gutenberg#80462) - Block Editor: Reflect inherited Global Styles values in block inspector controls (WordPress/gutenberg#80481) - Autocomplete: Reference the suggestions list with `aria-controls` and `aria-haspopup` (WordPress/gutenberg#80403) (WordPress/gutenberg#80499) - Media: Remove the redundant __heicUploadSupport flag (WordPress/gutenberg#80486) - State control - avoid tertiary variant on toggle to match style of other dropdown toggles (WordPress/gutenberg#80505) - Icons: Store the sanitized SVG content when registering an icon (WordPress/gutenberg#80508) - Fix `useHomeEnd` on tabs in mac testing (WordPress/gutenberg#80374) - Playlist: Fix playback of tracks served without CORS headers (WordPress/gutenberg#80533) - Redirect editing events to extension handlers under editableRoot (WordPress/gutenberg#80287) - Writing flow: fully select the items when a selection extends down into a nested item (WordPress/gutenberg#80492) - Global Styles panels: fix wrong preset committed and shown when two color presets share a hex (WordPress/gutenberg#80497) - Replaces the `title` attributes used by revision inline diff annotations with `aria-describedby` (WordPress/gutenberg#80440) - Notes: Remove "Add note" from the inline styles dropdown (WordPress/gutenberg#80531) - Global Styles: Resolve per-level heading element styles in block inspector controls (WordPress/gutenberg#80495) - Notes: Render @ mentions as span chips and narrow the kses class allowance (WordPress/gutenberg#80528) - Revisions: Specify block level diff status via aria-label (WordPress/gutenberg#77779) - Backport from Core: improve icon name unit tests (WordPress/gutenberg#80552) - Device type preview: fix collapsing to content height (WordPress/gutenberg#80553) - Wrap notices in ThemeProvider with 0 corner radius (WordPress/gutenberg#80557) - Global Styles: Limit the inherited value treatment to the Gutenberg plugin (WordPress/gutenberg#80555) - Fix crashes when manipulating locked blocks (WordPress/gutenberg#80509) - Notes: align floating threads with their inline marker (WordPress/gutenberg#79877) Props wildworks. See #65529. git-svn-id: https://develop.svn.wordpress.org/trunk@62824 602fd350-edb4-49c9-b593-d223f7449a82

@SInCE

This updates the pinned commit hash of the Gutenberg repository from `e73c3c481db0650183f092af157f6e42efe9ee2d` to `4997026b75c922d8a6f77a03d72ed7cad04c7073`. A full list of changes included in this commit can be found on GitHub: WordPress/gutenberg@e73c3c4...4997026 - Notes: Replace blur-deselect bookkeeping with useFocusOutside (WordPress/gutenberg#80222) - Playlist: Update @SInCE tags to 7.1.0 (WordPress/gutenberg#80317) - fix playlist block Dimensions Design (WordPress/gutenberg#80312) - UI: Backport compat overlay fixes to WordPress 7.1 (WordPress/gutenberg#80322) - Editor: allow selecting which block styles to apply globally (WordPress/gutenberg#79839) - Global Styles: Reject non-string custom CSS in the REST controller (WordPress/gutenberg#80338) - Open inspector sidebar when toggling responsive editing (WordPress/gutenberg#80307) - Client Side Media: Honor image_strip_meta and image_max_bit_depth on the client upload path (WordPress/gutenberg#80218) - Hide block style variations when state is enabled in global styles (WordPress/gutenberg#80341) - Media REST API: Fix sideload and finalize for EXIF rotated images (WordPress/gutenberg#80295) - Fix upload snackbar stuck in uploading state on server-side uploads (WordPress/gutenberg#80345) - Try fixing responsive layout in Nav block (WordPress/gutenberg#80305) - Responsive styles: Use viewport dropdown to control states for in-editor global styles sidebar (WordPress/gutenberg#80339) - RichTextControl: Replace DOM focus tracking with a single React-tree focus boundary (WordPress/gutenberg#80324) - Notes: Finish WPDS treatment for mention chips (WordPress/gutenberg#80300) - Notes: Add placeholders to the RichText fields (WordPress/gutenberg#80296) - Fix upload hang when converting long animated GIFs: decode only the first frame for still outputs (WordPress/gutenberg#80260) (WordPress/gutenberg#80342) - Device preview dropdown: use active color for device icon when responsive styles are active (WordPress/gutenberg#80346) - Fix default aspect ratio for lazy loaded Featured image (WordPress/gutenberg#80386) - Vips/upload-media: consolidate optional params into options objects (WordPress/gutenberg#80330) - Autocompleters: Don't pre-encode mention search terms (WordPress/gutenberg#80377) - Animated GIF uploads: generate sub-sizes from the first frame, matching core (WordPress/gutenberg#80268) - Custom CSS: Fix cascade order against block style variations (WordPress/gutenberg#80340) - Rich Text: Restore the selection when focus returns to the editable (WordPress/gutenberg#80396) - Notes: Arm the mention kses allowance on REST note creation (WordPress/gutenberg#80221) - Fix upload snackbar double-counting a single HEIC upload in Safari (WordPress/gutenberg#80436) - ContentEditableControl: fix invalid label association with contenteditable div (WordPress/gutenberg#80441) - Editor: Disable canvas resizing while zoomed out (WordPress/gutenberg#80391) - Fix Color Picker Cursor Shaking Issue (WordPress/gutenberg#80205) (WordPress/gutenberg#80435) - Misc fixes for WordPress-Develop 7.0 merges (WordPress/gutenberg#80444) - Style Book: Restore live global styles updates on the styles route (WordPress/gutenberg#80459) - Worker threads: reject pending RPC calls on worker failure or termination (WordPress/gutenberg#79955) (WordPress/gutenberg#80421) - Media: Add timeout and size guardrails to client-side GIF to video conversion (WordPress/gutenberg#80420) - Post Content: Use the default block appender for empty content (WordPress/gutenberg#80026) - Block Supports: Handle nested array block gap values properly (WordPress/gutenberg#80464) - Editor: Restore fixed device preview height for mobile and tablet (WordPress/gutenberg#80466) - Block Editor: Guard against non-string spacing preset values (WordPress/gutenberg#80467) - Writing flow: fully select the ancestor when a text selection crosses a nesting boundary (WordPress/gutenberg#80462) - Block Editor: Reflect inherited Global Styles values in block inspector controls (WordPress/gutenberg#80481) - Autocomplete: Reference the suggestions list with `aria-controls` and `aria-haspopup` (WordPress/gutenberg#80403) (WordPress/gutenberg#80499) - Media: Remove the redundant __heicUploadSupport flag (WordPress/gutenberg#80486) - State control - avoid tertiary variant on toggle to match style of other dropdown toggles (WordPress/gutenberg#80505) - Icons: Store the sanitized SVG content when registering an icon (WordPress/gutenberg#80508) - Fix `useHomeEnd` on tabs in mac testing (WordPress/gutenberg#80374) - Playlist: Fix playback of tracks served without CORS headers (WordPress/gutenberg#80533) - Redirect editing events to extension handlers under editableRoot (WordPress/gutenberg#80287) - Writing flow: fully select the items when a selection extends down into a nested item (WordPress/gutenberg#80492) - Global Styles panels: fix wrong preset committed and shown when two color presets share a hex (WordPress/gutenberg#80497) - Replaces the `title` attributes used by revision inline diff annotations with `aria-describedby` (WordPress/gutenberg#80440) - Notes: Remove "Add note" from the inline styles dropdown (WordPress/gutenberg#80531) - Global Styles: Resolve per-level heading element styles in block inspector controls (WordPress/gutenberg#80495) - Notes: Render @ mentions as span chips and narrow the kses class allowance (WordPress/gutenberg#80528) - Revisions: Specify block level diff status via aria-label (WordPress/gutenberg#77779) - Backport from Core: improve icon name unit tests (WordPress/gutenberg#80552) - Device type preview: fix collapsing to content height (WordPress/gutenberg#80553) - Wrap notices in ThemeProvider with 0 corner radius (WordPress/gutenberg#80557) - Global Styles: Limit the inherited value treatment to the Gutenberg plugin (WordPress/gutenberg#80555) - Fix crashes when manipulating locked blocks (WordPress/gutenberg#80509) - Notes: align floating threads with their inline marker (WordPress/gutenberg#79877) Props wildworks. See #65529. Built from https://develop.svn.wordpress.org/trunk@62824 git-svn-id: http://core.svn.wordpress.org/trunk@62104 1a063a9b-81f0-0310-95a4-ce76da25c4cd

shail-mehta self-assigned this Jul 18, 2026

shail-mehta added [Type] Bug An existing feature does not function as intended [Focus] Accessibility (a11y) Changes that impact accessibility and need corresponding review (e.g. markup changes). [Feature] History History, undo, redo, revisions, autosave. labels Jul 18, 2026

github-actions Bot added the [Package] Editor /packages/editor label Jul 18, 2026

shail-mehta marked this pull request as ready for review July 18, 2026 04:17

shail-mehta requested review from joedolson and t-hamano July 18, 2026 04:25

joedolson requested changes Jul 19, 2026

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joedolson mentioned this pull request Jul 21, 2026

Editor: Describe inline revision diffs with aria-describedby #80207

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shail-mehta added 4 commits July 21, 2026 22:06

Replace revision diff attributes with

a4a1fc3

Check Unit test

b9a6294

Check Unit test

93f83ee

Apply Feedback Changes

17ad7ed

shail-mehta force-pushed the fix/revision-inline-diff-a11y branch from 96d743e to 17ad7ed Compare July 21, 2026 16:45

shail-mehta requested a review from joedolson July 21, 2026 17:18

joedolson approved these changes Jul 21, 2026

View reviewed changes

joedolson added Backport to Gutenberg RC Pull request that needs to be backported to a Gutenberg release candidate (RC) Backport to WP 7.1 Beta/RC Pull request that needs to be backported to the WordPress major release that's currently in beta labels Jul 21, 2026

This was referenced Jul 21, 2026

Visual Revisions: Accessibility #77530

Open

Add support for tooltips for metabox controls WordPress/wordpress-develop#12528

Closed

Merge branch 'trunk' into fix/revision-inline-diff-a11y

6c6ac0f

shail-mehta merged commit bd699da into trunk Jul 22, 2026
43 checks passed

shail-mehta deleted the fix/revision-inline-diff-a11y branch July 22, 2026 02:20

github-actions Bot added this to the Gutenberg 23.7 milestone Jul 22, 2026

github-actions Bot removed the Backport to WP 7.1 Beta/RC Pull request that needs to be backported to the WordPress major release that's currently in beta label Jul 22, 2026

github-actions Bot added the Backported to WP Core Pull request that has been successfully merged into WP Core label Jul 22, 2026

t-hamano removed the Backport to Gutenberg RC Pull request that needs to be backported to a Gutenberg release candidate (RC) label Jul 22, 2026

t-hamano modified the milestones: Gutenberg 23.7, Gutenberg 23.6 Jul 22, 2026

t-hamano mentioned this pull request Jul 22, 2026

General: Bump the pinned hash for Gutenberg to 499702 WordPress/wordpress-develop#12631

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