#13813·gradio

Accessibility issue: loading progress is not announced to screen readers

Author: froggericCreated Sep 2, 2026Updated Sep 15, 2026
Labelsenhancement

While a function runs, the loading status that covers a component (queue position, progress bar, iteration counts) is invisible to screen readers.

The progress bar is a plain <div> with no role, and the text next to it updates silently. A voiceover (macos) or windows nvda user who submits a form gets no feedback: they cannot tell a task started, how far along it is, or where they are in the queue. For long-running jobs this means sitting with no feedback at all, not knowing if anything is happening.

To reproduce, run a function that takes a few seconds and listen with a screen reader:

python
import time
import gradio as gr

def slow():
    time.sleep(8)
    return "done"

gr.Interface(slow, inputs=None, outputs="text").launch()

Nothing about the run is announced at any point.

I checked js/statustracker/static/index.svelte on current main, there are no role or aria-* attributes anywhere in the component.