Dear Audacity Development Team,
I would like to share some feedback regarding accessibility in Audacity 4, particularly for users who rely on screen readers such as NVDA and JAWS.
First, I want to thank the Audacity team for continuing to develop and improve such an important and widely used audio-editing application. Audacity has been a valuable tool for many users, including blind and visually impaired users, and I appreciate the work that goes into each new version.
However, I have noticed a significant accessibility regression in Audacity 4 compared with Audacity 3.
In Audacity 3, NVDA and JAWS were generally able to interact with and announce many of the application’s user-interface elements, including buttons, menus, controls, and other interface components. While there may have been some accessibility limitations, the overall interface was substantially more usable with screen-reading software.
In Audacity 4, however, many of these interface elements appear to be inaccessible or are no longer properly exposed to screen readers. This makes it considerably more difficult, and in some cases effectively impossible, for blind and visually impaired users to navigate and use the application independently.
The issue appears to extend beyond a single control or feature. It includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
Buttons that are not announced or identified correctly by screen readers
Menus and menu items that are difficult or impossible to navigate using NVDA or JAWS
Interface elements whose names, roles, or states are not properly exposed
Controls that may be visually present but are not accessible through keyboard and screen-reader interaction
Changes in focus behavior that make navigation difficult
Other elements of the Audacity interface that were previously accessible or at least partially accessible in Audacity 3
Because of this, Audacity 4 currently represents a substantial step backward in accessibility for screen-reader users compared with Audacity 3.
I understand that major changes to an application’s user interface or underlying technology can unintentionally introduce accessibility regressions. My intention is not to criticize the development team, but rather to bring attention to an issue that has a significant impact on users who depend on assistive technology.
I would strongly encourage the Audacity team to investigate the accessibility of the new interface with both NVDA and JAWS and to consider accessibility as a core requirement during the development and testing of future releases.
It would also be extremely helpful if the team could work directly with blind and visually impaired users or accessibility specialists during testing. Real-world testing with screen readers can reveal problems that may not be apparent through conventional UI or automated accessibility testing.
Ideally, users should be able to perform the same essential tasks in Audacity 4 using a keyboard and screen reader that sighted users can perform through the graphical interface, including navigating menus, identifying controls, changing settings, editing audio, and accessing dialogs and other functionality.
I sincerely hope this can be addressed in a future release. Audacity has historically been a useful and accessible option for many users, and restoring and improving screen-reader accessibility would make a significant difference to the blind and visually impaired community.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this feedback, and thank you for your continued work on Audacity.
Kind regards,