Screen readers can navigate timelines as lists

Screen readers can now navigate issue and pull request timelines as a list. When you move through a timeline, assistive technology can announce the list structure, item count, current position, and how to move between events. This makes it easier to understand long histories and jump to relevant updates without relying on visual scanning.

When you select Load more or Load all, your screen reader now announces how many events loaded (e.g., “11 new items loaded”) after focus moves to the newest event. Previously, new events loaded without an announcement.

This update does not change how timelines look or behave, but it improves how they work with assistive technologies.

You can use these improvements on issue, pull request, commit, secret scanning alert, and license compliance alert timelines. This update is available on github.com and GitHub Enterprise Server 3.23.

To try it, open an issue or pull request with a long history and page through the timeline with a screen reader such as VoiceOver, NVDA, or JAWS. The screen reader announces the timeline as a list with a count and position, and selecting Load more reports the number of new events that loaded.

To learn more, see our screen reader guide for issues.

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