It looks like QLabels are not read by the JAWS screenreader. JAWS has a hotkey that should “read the whole window” (JAWS-Key + B), but for our application that just reads the window title and nothing else. Everything I can focus directly via tabbing is read as well – which is of course not desirable with labels.

Probably related: We have some QWizards set up. There, the QWizardPage title and description texts are used to convey most of the information concerning the wizard page’s purpose. Those texts are not read at all as well.

I have a minimal test case application[0] that has a label (not read), a button and a QLineEdit (accessibleName read fine for both). The button opens a wizard that has title and description (not read) and no further input widgets.

Frederik Gladhorn suggested on the a11y mailing list[1] that NVDA should be able to read QLabels. Experimenting with it I couldn't get it to read the whole window including the label using the NVDA+B hotkey, that action just reads the window title. It announces the QLabel's accessibleName and description upon mouseover though.

(Windows 8.1 with JAWS 16 resp. NVDA 2014.4)

[0] https://filetrain.de/a11ytest.zip
[1] http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/accessibility/2015-February/000054.html