Timestamps are not accessible to screen reader users in the web UI

[mcking65]

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In the web UI for events on issues, PRS, discussions, etc., timestamps are a link where the link text is a relative time, e.g., 2 weeks ago. I frequently need to know when something was done. That information is not available to me as a screen reader user.

My work around has ben To use the browser dev tools to inspect the link, copy the outer HTML, paste into an editor, and dig out the time from the title attribute that is on the relativetime element. This takes an unreasonable amount of time.

It would be very helpful if activating the link were to toggle between showing the relative time and the actual time. Technically then, the link should probably have role button, but that is a less important matter.

For example, here is a snippet of the code I'm talking about.

<a 
  href="https://github.com/w3c/wai-aria-practices/pull/452#event-23294343858"
  class="Link--secondary">
  <relative-time
    datetime="2026-03-05T11:32:09Z"
    class="no-wrap"
    title="Mar 5, 2026, 3:32 AM PST">
    Mar 5, 2026
  </relative-time>
  </a>

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[queenofcorgis]

@mcking65 Thank you for reporting this! Could you please share the browser version and screen reader you're experiencing this with so I can include that in my report?

[mcking65]

Google Chrome Version 146.0.7680.80
Microsoft Edge Version 146.0.3856.62
JAWS version 2026.2512.50.400
NVDA 2025.3.3

This is a long-standing GitHub bug. This behavior is not related to any recent changes to JAWS, NVDA, Chrome, or Edge.

There are some conditions where NVDA can be coaxed into announcing the time stamp when reading with arrow keys in browse mode. However, I have not found a reliable method for repeating that announcement . The announced timestamp information is transient, i.e., it is not present in the browse mode buffer because it is being announced as a grouping label. I'm not sure why NVDA is ever announcing the timestamp because the title attribute on the relativetime element should be getting ignored by the browser's implementation of the accname algorithm. So, I think that announcement is the side effect of a bug either in Chromium or NVDA.