Character count message is repeated twice by screen readers

[36degrees]

Description of the issue

The character count message is repeated twice when the user stops typing.

Steps to reproduce the issue

Type a single character into the character count.

Actual vs expected behaviour

Expected: Screen reader announces "You have 9 characters remaining."

Actual: The count message is read twice by:

• JAWS 2021.2103.174 / Chrome 96
• JAWS 2021.2103.174 / Firefox 95
• NVDA 2021.2 / Chrome 96
• NVDA 2021.2 / Firefox 94

"You have 9 characters remaining. You have 9 characters remaining."

VoiceOver / Safari 15.2 (macOS Big Sur) was a little inconsistent, but on one occasion repeated it three times: "You have 9 characters remaining. You have 9 characters remaining. You have 9 characters remaining. You are currently on a text area"

JAWS 2021.2103.174 / IE11 and VoiceOver / Safari (iOS 15.2) behave as expected, announcing the remaining count only once.

Environment (where applicable)

• Operating system: As above
• Browser: As above
• Browser version: As above
• GOV.UK Frontend Version: v4.0.0

[36degrees]

I believe this is likely because of the use of aria-live in combination with the count message being associated using aria-describedby.

https://www.davidmacd.com/blog/test-aria-describedby-errormessage-aria-live.html suggests that using both together results in double speak, which is what we're seeing here.