Currently, the only way to tell if a notification is unread in the Recent Activity module on the homepage is whether it's in bold text or not. Screen readers cannot detect this so people using them cannot tell if a message has been read.
Two options to deal with this are
- Consistently add alt text to message icons which contain the message status "Unread message", "Read system message", etc
- Add hidden "Unread" or "Read" text to the message title and consistently give the icons null alt text
Alternatively, the text itself could be changed from "New message ..." to "Message" when the message is read - it seems strange that read messages are still titled "New".
Affects latest master (using Orca 3.4.2)
(WCAG Level A)
Since we have message icons, it would seem sensible to give them proper alt text as that could also help others identify what the icons stand for. So I'm for option 1.