The column sort functionality provided on the admin ChangeList page has much room for accessibility improvement.
- Insufficient description when accessing a button that can be sorted but is not currently active for sorting.
Currently, when accessing a button that can be sorted but sorting is not yet active, no description is provided. It should inform users that the field is sortable when they access the button.
- The issue of the sort button being accessed before the field.
When accessing a column with sorting applied, the sort button is currently focused before the column itself.
This is likely because screen readers tend to focus on interactive elements first.
I believe the element that is positioned above the sort button should be accessed first (and it may also need a description).
- Cannot access the button to remove sorting.
Screen reader users cannot access the button to remove sorting in the column sort feature (an element that appears on mouse hover). Naturally, the button to remove sorting should also be accessible.
- Provide more detailed descriptions for the sort buttons.
When the sort button is accessed, the title attribute is read, but the current description provided by the title is not sufficient for screen reader users to understand the sort direction of the button. (Visual users can understand it, but screen reader users cannot.)
A more detailed description should be provided for screen reader users on the sort button.
Note that I think it's quite common to have a deactivated sort icon (arrow up and down, a bit muted in color) to indicate that the column is sort-able rather than having the header be a link
In which case there would always be an icon for sorting