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Maniphest T418387

[MEX] 🚧 a11y errors occur in editStringDatatypes cypress test for commons media in some local environments
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Description

At least 3 of us (@AudreyPenven_WMDE, @Sadiya.Mohammed_WMDE, @ArthurTaylor) have gotten accessibility violations when running cypress tests locally. The failing test is for editing commons media statements in editStringDatatypes.cy.ts. The img tag is missing alt-text, and a link is missing text. It can be observed by running npm run cypress:run or npm run cypress:open in the Wikibase directory.

Screenshot From 2026-02-24 18-08-26.png (1,592×1,022 px, 354 KB)

As far as we're aware, all relevant repos are on the latest master and everything is up to date. However, not everyone is able to reproduce this issue (@mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde, for example, tried and could not). The error also does not occur in ci.

Since this is affecting multiple team members, we should investigate this further and find a fix. However unlikely, we should also confirm that this isn't a bug waiting to hit production.

Details

Related Changes in Gerrit:
SubjectAuthorRepoBranchLines +/-
Silence a11y warnings about missing alt-tags for commonsMediaArthur taylormediawiki/extensions/Wikibasemaster+8 -1
Add aria-labelledby option to ThumbnailImageArthur taylormediawiki/coremaster+28 -0
Use aria-labelledby attribute in CommonsInlineImageFormatterArthur taylormediawiki/extensions/Wikibasemaster+11 -3
Customize query in gerrit

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Event Timeline

AudreyPenven_WMDE created this task.Feb 25 2026, 3:47 PM
AudreyPenven_WMDE added a project: Wikidata-Omega.Feb 25 2026, 3:50 PM
• karapayneWMDE moved this task from Incoming to The Backlog on the Wikidata-Omega board.Mar 2 2026, 8:25 AM
• karapayneWMDE moved this task from The Backlog to Ready for Task Time (Story Writing) on the Wikidata-Omega board.
ArthurTaylor renamed this task from [MEX] a11y errors occur in editStringDatatypes cypress test for commons media in some local environments to [MEX] 🚧 a11y errors occur in editStringDatatypes cypress test for commons media in some local environments.Mar 2 2026, 8:34 AM
ArthurTaylor claimed this task.
ArthurTaylor moved this task from Ready for Task Time (Story Writing) to The Backlog on the Wikidata-Omega board.
ArthurTaylor moved this task from The Backlog to The Board on the Wikidata-Omega board.
ArthurTaylor edited projects, added: Wikidata-Omega (The Board); removed: Wikidata-Omega.
ArthurTaylor moved this task from new to the board to In Development on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
gerritbot added a comment.Mar 2 2026, 11:26 AM

Change #1247030 had a related patch set uploaded (by Arthur taylor; author: Arthur taylor):

[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Provide alt-text in CommonsInlineImageFormatter

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247030

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Mar 2 2026, 11:26 AM
gerritbot added a comment.Mar 4 2026, 9:32 AM

Change #1247938 had a related patch set uploaded (by Arthur taylor; author: Arthur taylor):

[mediawiki/core@master] Add aria-labelledby option to ThumbnailImage

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247938

ArthurTaylor removed ArthurTaylor as the assignee of this task.Mar 4 2026, 9:37 AM
ArthurTaylor moved this task from In Development to Ready for Peer Review on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
ArthurTaylor assigned this task to Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE.Mar 5 2026, 8:11 AM
ArthurTaylor moved this task from Ready for Peer Review to In Peer Review on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
ArthurTaylor added subscribers: Alice.moutinho, Lucas.EditedMar 10 2026, 8:10 AM

When we have a statement on an item on Wikidata like the attached - an image on commons - our accessibility testing tools tell us (quite reasonably) that the image is missing an alt-text attribute. You can see that the image is labelled with its filename, and we could make that the label (with aria-labelledby), but @Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE has the concern that a filename isn't, in fact, a description of the image.

2026-03-05-091948_743x469_scrot.png (743×469 px, 33 KB)

It is possible to give images in commons descriptions, but it would be relatively complex to extract that for this use case, and the description isn't always present.

@Alice.moutinho what would be your preferred solution here?

ArthurTaylor removed a subscriber: Lucas.Mar 10 2026, 8:11 AM
Alice.moutinho added a comment.Mar 10 2026, 9:10 AM

After evaluating all possibilities at hand, i think it is better to hardcode the alt-text to say "image" (if it is always an image) or "media" if there are also types of media included. Like this the user using a screen reader at least gets some context before hearing the file name, that in this case makes sense with the image but sometimes could be something non descriptive like "IMG_23567.svg".

But this is a quick fix, we should properly address this problem once we have capacity - so a follow up ticket would be great!

Arian_Bozorg added a comment.Mar 10 2026, 10:32 AM

We will silence the tool issue for now

Move the ticket to M5 and create a follow up ticket that will investigate a solution that addresses the issue.

Related task: T325955

ArthurTaylor claimed this task.Mar 10 2026, 11:27 AM
ArthurTaylor moved this task from In Peer Review to In Development on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
gerritbot added a comment.Mar 12 2026, 11:39 AM

Change #1251050 had a related patch set uploaded (by Arthur taylor; author: Arthur taylor):

[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Silence a11y warnings about missing alt-tags for commonsMedia

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1251050

gerritbot added a comment.Mar 12 2026, 11:39 AM

Change #1247030 abandoned by Arthur taylor:

[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Use aria-labelledby attribute in CommonsInlineImageFormatter

Reason:

prefer I6ab2cb0c248a71d8aaddc78619919ac06a6a6964

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247030

gerritbot added a comment.Mar 12 2026, 11:40 AM

Change #1247938 abandoned by Arthur taylor:

[mediawiki/core@master] Add aria-labelledby option to ThumbnailImage

Reason:

prefer I6ab2cb0c248a71d8aaddc78619919ac06a6a6964

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247938

ArthurTaylor removed ArthurTaylor as the assignee of this task.Mar 12 2026, 11:40 AM
ArthurTaylor moved this task from In Development to Ready for Peer Review on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE claimed this task.Mar 18 2026, 11:33 AM
Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE moved this task from Ready for Peer Review to In Peer Review on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
gerritbot added a comment.Mar 18 2026, 3:06 PM

Change #1251050 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Silence a11y warnings about missing alt-tags for commonsMedia

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1251050

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Mar 18 2026, 3:31 PM
Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE removed Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE as the assignee of this task.Mar 18 2026, 4:11 PM
Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE moved this task from In Peer Review to Ready for Tech Verification on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
ReleaseTaggerBot added a project: MW-1.46-notes (1.46.0-wmf.21; 2026-03-24).Mar 18 2026, 6:41 PM
• karapayneWMDE moved this task from Ready for Tech Verification to In Tech Verification on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.Mar 19 2026, 3:28 PM
• karapayneWMDE moved this task from In Tech Verification to Ready for Tech Verification on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde added a comment.Apr 1 2026, 1:15 PM

Technical verification: The applied solution sounds reasonable, I'm unable to test it locally because it is working fine from the beginning.
I'm passing this issue to Done and will check the follow-up task.
Thank you!

mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde closed this task as Resolved.Apr 1 2026, 1:15 PM
mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde claimed this task.
mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde moved this task from Ready for Tech Verification to Done - Moving a task here will move it to the completed tasks workboard, resolve the ticket, and assign it to whomever made the move on the Wikidata-Omega (The Board) board.
mahmoud.abdelsattar.wmde edited projects, added: Wikidata-Omega (Completed Tasks); removed: Wikidata-Omega (The Board).
• karapayneWMDE moved this task from Newly completed tasks to 2026 Q1 on the Wikidata-Omega (Completed Tasks) board.Apr 8 2026, 2:51 PM
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