On the "Almost done" page, clicking Continue triggers a ~10-20 second PDF assembly process. A visual spinner appears with the text "please wait while we make your documents," but screen reader users receive no indication that their submission is being processed. When the results page loads, focus is not moved to the new content, leaving screen reader users with no signal that anything changed. During user testing, tester (JAWS, Chrome, Desktop) confirmed this across multiple loading states. When facilitator described seeing a loading indicator during a page transition, tester heard nothing and recommended a simple ARIA announcement: "I would just do a… nothing fancy, like, please wait… you don't want to convey too much information… if visually it's only a spinner, then you don't want to say a whole bunch of extra stuff that's only speech". During PDF generation, he again confirmed silence: "Nope, haven't heard anything". When facilitator read the visual text aloud, tester said: "Yeah, that's perfect, just make that… make that text speak". He also recommended an announcement when loading completes, so users know new content is available. Tester B (cognitive/neurological disabilities, phone) independently raised the same concern from a sighted user's perspective. When asked what the spinning dots indicated, she said: "I would guess it would mean that it's processing. But that might not make sense to everybody, so it might be worth having, like, the word processing below it, or something that, like, indicates in case the… or in case someone's using a screen reader or something, and that doesn't quite show up". She also noted users may associate the spinner with a negative experience: "For folks who are used to, like, really old computers, the wheel, the, like, pinwheel thing, like, people tend to have a negative association with, since it means, like, typically the computer is, like, really slow or needs to be restarted".
There are two separate issues here. For the loading spinner that already has visual text ("please wait while we make your documents"), wrap the text in an "aria-live=polite" region so screen readers announce it when it appears. For the loading spinner during page transitions that has no text, add descriptive text (such as "Loading, please wait") and announce it the same way. As tester recommended during testing, keep the announcement simple and match what sighted users see: "If visually it's only a spinner, then you don't want to say a whole bunch of extra stuff that's only speech." Also consider announcing when loading completes so users know new content is available. See A11Y-19 for the related focus management issue on page transitions.
(See A11Y-17)
(See A11Y-17)