How do we make emojis accessible?

[Sam O'Hanlon]

With how we are using emojis, those emojis are information-bearing. However, screen readers are not reading the emojis. Can we fix this?

[Brant Schroeder]

@Sam O'Hanlon Welcome to the Atlassian community

In order for the emoji to be accessible, it would need to have alt text associated with it so a reader knows what to express to the user.  If you are using the delivered emojis provided by Atlassian in Confluence these have the required alt text and most readers should be able to let the user know what they are.  If you are using a custom emoji that you added or copied and pasted into Confluence it might be missing this and would not work.  What are you using?

[Sam O'Hanlon]

@Brant Schroeder 

We are using both built-in emojis and custom ones we made. We're hoping for screen readers to read the name of the emoji. However, neither the built-in emojis nor the custom emojis are being read. We've tried with two different screen readers.

Thank you for your help!

[Brant Schroeder]

For the emojis that you are just pasting in I am not sure that those would work but the emojis that are in the delivered product those should work with the reader.  I would suggest submitting a support issue and seeing what Atlassian says.  Their products usually meet accessibility standards.  https://support.atlassian.com/contact/ 

[Sam O'Hanlon]

Will do. Thank you.

[Matthew Brennan]

@sam are you experiencing this issue in reading or edit mode in confluence? There are known issues with emojis in edit mode not being read correctly across all browser and screen reader combinations. But in standard reading mode they should have their associated description attached.

[Sam O'Hanlon]

@Matthew Brennan Both. But it seems to be screen reader specific. I was using Natural Reader.