processing / processing/p5.js

Update describe function limits and best practices

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#9,105 4 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@Ayush4958 is already working on this.

Since Aug 21, 2026.

Area:Accessibility Enhancement Good First Issue
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

Increasing access

A new lang parameter will be added to ensure screen readers can programmatically identify the language of the text for the describe() and describeElement(). This will ensure screen readers (mostly for Windows users) can change to the proper screen reader voice language.

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?
  • Accessibility
  • Color
  • Core/Environment/Rendering
  • Data
  • DOM
  • Events
  • Image
  • IO
  • Math
  • Typography
  • Utilities
  • WebGL
  • Build process
  • Unit testing
  • Internationalization
  • Friendly errors
  • Other (specify if possible)
Feature enhancement details

This pertains to one of the items for issue #9100.

The contributor documentations need to be updated to include these key guidelines:

  1. TTS engines cannot reliably pronounce transliterations of languages. This can make it hard for the screen reader users to understand the text for the describe functions. Our current workaround to resolve this is to encourage sketch creators to use their native script language when writing the text for describe functions.

  2. macOS VoiceOver ignores the lang attribute completely so Latin-script languages (Spanish, German, French, etc) will be read with the English voice so it's likely that words won't be pronounced correctly.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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