Cannot navigate by list items in definition lists in Chromium browsers

[tmthywynn8]

When encountering definition/description lists in Chromium browsers, one cannot navigate by list items (I), however NVDA still provides the list semantics and one can navigate to said list (L). This works as expected in Firefox 126.

Steps to reproduce:

1. In a Chromium browser, open the following by pasting in the address bar:

   data:text/html,<p>Description list with three terms:</p><dl><dt>Term 1</dt><dd>Description 1</dd><dt>Term 2</dt><dd>Description 2</dd><dt>Term 3</dt><dd>Description 3</dd></dl>
   

2. Navigate to the description list by pressing L.
3. navigate by list items by pressing I.

Actual behavior:

{pressing L}: list with 6 items Term 1
{Pressing I}: no next list item

Expected behavior:

{Tested in Mozilla Firefox Version 126.0 (64-bit)}:
{Pressing L}: list with 6 items Term 1
{Pressing I}: Term 2

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

2024.2beta2

Windows version:

Windows 10 Enterprise Version 21H2 (OS build 19044.3086)

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

• Microsoft Edge for Business Version 125.0.2535.51 (Official build) (64-bit)
• Google Chrome Version 125.0.6422.77 (Official Build) (32-bit)

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

NVDA 2023.3 exhibits the same behavior.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

Yes

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

Yes

[seanbudd]

Closing as duplicate of #3858

[tmthywynn8]

Reopening because I don't think this is a duplicate of #3858. The terms are navigable in Firefox with I and but not with Chromium browsers. The issue that is believed to be a duplicate of relates to how terms and descriptions are navigated/announced by NVDA and the best way of presenting that semantic information. Please read my STR, expected results, and actual results again, and if you believe it to be a duplicate issue, please let me know.

[Adriani90]

Description lists are more and more used in the wild, especially when interviews are published, whereby Questions are the terms and answers are their description.
e.g. for An interview with 3 questions and 3 answers, NVDA reports in Firefox "list with 6 items", but when using the quick nav key i for list items, NVDA navigates only the 3 questions which are treated like list items.
cc: @jcsteh what is the reason behind this behavior? In my opinion NVDA should report list with 3 items since the description of a term is part of a list item itself.

[Adriani90]

@aleventhal, @dsexton should we create an Issue on the Chromium bug tracker as well? Or is there one already?
In Chromium, NVDA also reports terms and their descriptions as separate list items when entering a description list, although the description of a term is not a separate list item.

In Chromium, pressing quick navigation key i for list items doesn't recognize any of them in a description list.
cc: @SaschaCowley is this something that can be fixed in NVDA's virtual document?

[aleventhal]

Hi @Adriani90. It would be great if you could file an issue at crbug. Before doing so, do you mind checking to see if JAWS + Chrome are also broken? It would be good to know if we are following HTML-AAM properly or not, or, what we're doing differently from Firefox.

[Adriani90]

In Chromium Jaws even doesn't recognize that there is a list at all. NVDA at least can say that there is a list but doesn't recognize the list items.
I've created https://issues.chromium.org/issues/376278217