Keep spoken updates helpful and brief

What to change

Ask your supplier to announce useful outcomes such as updated results or saved progress without repeatedly reading whole sections or interrupting unfinished work.

A worked example

Illustrative example

After a filter change, a short result-count update is announced. The entire list of card descriptions is left for the visitor to explore deliberately.

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Why this matters to your practice

Spoken updates should offer the information a visitor needs at that moment. After filtering a list, a short result count may be useful; automatically reading every result again may interrupt the task. Ask your supplier to demonstrate several quick changes while listening to the page. Agree which outcomes deserve an announcement and let people explore the details themselves. Your role is to assess whether the feedback is helpful and timely, rather than choose the technical mechanism that delivers it.

How to check the result

Accept when meaningful changes are discoverable without repeated interruptions, stale messages or unsolicited reading of large content regions.

A mistake to avoid

Silencing every update avoids noise but can leave users unaware that an action completed or produced no results.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discussTrigger a search, filter change or draft save and listen with a screen reader (software that reads the page aloud). Record the exact scope and repetition of automatic announcements.Perform several changes quickly. Check whether obsolete updates are announced after a newer state has already appeared on screen.Ask the supplier to demonstrate a concise status approach that keeps focus on the user's current control while making the completed outcome available.

Your answers and notes

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

What happens next, and who will do it?

Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.

Related guides

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