Selected state is not announced for combo Box options.: A11y_Winform_Input_NameRoleValue

[PoojaNamde]

Github Tags:

#A11yTCS; #A11yMAS; #WCAG4.1.2; #A11ySev2; #E2E_WinForms.NETRuntime_Win32_Sept2026; #DesktopApp; #FTP; #WinForms .NET Runtime; #NameRoleValue; #a11ydb-state-not-coded;

Issue Subcategory:

State change not programmatically exposed

User Experience:

Screen reader users may not learn that a control changed state, so they may not know whether it is expanded, pressed, selected, or checked

Repro Steps:

Launch Winforms app > Input > Observe the issue.

Actual Result:

When navigating through the Test Category combo box using the Up and Down Arrow keys, the highlighted option changes and becomes the current selection. However, the screen reader announces only the option name and does not convey its selected state. As a result, screen reader users may be unable to determine which option is currently selected within the combo box.

Expected Result:

The screen reader should announce the selected state of the currently selected option (for example, "Scaling, selected") when navigating through the combo box items.

How to Fix:

Expose the state with the appropriate native control or ARIA state (for example aria-expanded, aria-pressed, aria-selected, or aria-checked) and keep it synchronized with the visual state. Prefer native controls that manage state automatically

Note issue:
Issue 1: Launch Winforms app > List, trees and grid> The selected state is not announced for buttons, text boxes, combo boxes, or data grids view.

Environment details:

Application Name: WinForms .NET Runtime
OS: Windows 11 Enterprise Insider Preview 26300.8276

Note:

"Contact CAI Accessibility Support Channel for Accessibility queries on design, development, test, usability or any processes"
Check out Accessibility Insights! - Identify accessibility bugs before check-in and make bug fixing faster and easier.

Attachment:

15169_screen.reader.mp4

[LeafShi1]

@PoojaNamde This issue cannot be reproduced with the ComboBox control, it might be related to a specific project. Could you please provide a simple reproduction project?

[PoojaNamde]

@LeafShi1 updated the attachment. Please let me know if you need app

[LeafShi1]

I investigated this issue and found that it is only reproducible with NVDA. Narrator and JAWS announce the selected state correctly.

Accessibility Insights shows that SelectionItem.IsSelected is correctly exposed as true, and AccEvent confirms that SelectionItem_ElementSelected is raised when the selection changes.

Therefore, the selected state appears to be correctly exposed by WinForms, and this issue seems to be NVDA-specific.

Similar NVDA-specific WinForms ComboBox behavior has also been reported in:

• NVDA: ComboBox Selected Item Not Announced in DropDownList Style in .NET Framework 4.8 WinForms Applications nvaccess/nvda#17454
• NVDA fails to announce ComboBox items when navigating with arrow keys in collapsed state and menu item checked states in Windows Forms (.NET Framework 4.8) nvaccess/nvda#19281, which was closed as a duplicate of #17454.

These issues may provide additional context about NVDA's handling of WinForms ComboBox announcements.