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Re: Accessible AJAX type form controls...

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Sep 11, 2007 1:30PM


This is only partially an AT problem. We encounter pages like this in user
testing, and a more significant problem is that a blind user cannot form and
maintain a mental model of the page. They might know that a link expands or
collapses some content but they don't know how much content is being
revealed or hidden.

One technique I have seen is to expand all the nodes then use a keyword
search to find what they want. It's painfully slow if there are a lot of
nodes, and of course they don't know how many nodes there are till they get
to the last one.

I would look for an alternative way of building the page. It is difficult
enough to form a mental model of a page, and to do so when the page is
changing will be beyond some users.




-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Hausler,Jesse
Sent: 11 September 2007 20:03
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible AJAX type form controls...


Yahoo! Has a pretty decent treeview control:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/default_tree_clean.html
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/index.html

It is keyboard accessible, but the + and - sign do not have ALT attributes.
When you turn Styles off, the tree view still works well with the keyboard,
but you lose the visual heirarchy of the nodes. You can aid this by
including text detailing the branch each item is on/within.

Jesse Hausler


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Stephanie
Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 4:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessible AJAX type form controls...

Has anyone seen a good, accessible implementation of a +/- type form
controls?

For instance, let's say you have an advanced search feature where you can
add different variables to search by. It starts with one field shown, but if
you click the + sign to the right, you can add another (or remove them)? If
the field is added below the area of the page where the user's focus is,
will the newer AT read it? Or do they still not know it's there. (I'm
guessing they still don't know it's there but am hoping things have been
changing while my head was turned.)

Is it better to create the form fields when the page loads, but keep them
hidden, and then show them (toggle them to a visible state) by clicking the
+ button? (my guess) Stef.

---
Stephanie Sullivan
http://www.w3conversions.com
Dreamweaver Task Force for WaSP
http://www.communitymx.com