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Re: Interdependent select boxes and text box

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Aug 26, 2014 7:53AM

Andrew
You are welcome.
Feel free to post a URL to your page to the list when development is
complete, if you want a confirmation of the actual content.
Thanks
-B

On 8/25/14, Andrew Johns < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi Birkir,
>
> Thanks for the reply - this has been a great help, and will take the
> trigger/focus issues on board when developing the system.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On 25 August 2014 13:41, Birkir R. Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
>> Andrew
>>
>> Your approach sounds fine from an accessibility perspective, as long
>> as the content that changes comes (in content order) after the
>> trigger.
>> Having a select box that changes content that comes before it would
>> definitely be confusing to users, particularly screen reader users who
>> do not have an overview of the page, and would violate WCAG "change of
>> context" success criterion.
>>
>> - Make sure that the content update is triggerred when user either
>> selects or (better yet) tabs out of the dropdown menu (without page
>> reload). Content update must respond to keyboard selection as well as
>> with the mouse obviously.
>> - Make sure the content that is updated comes, in content order, after
>> the dropdown that triggers the update. To avoid any confusion the
>> updated content should come inline to the dropdown (i.e. the first tab
>> press takes user into the updated content).
>> - Make sure that the user can reverse his actions (shift-tab from
>> content into dropdown) and select a different option.
>> Also make sure that focus does not jump automatically once user
>> selects something in the dropdown.
>> I have seen examples where, if a user select "other", the focus jumps
>> automatically to a text box, and from there user has difficulty
>> getting back to the dropdown using shift-tab. Wat should happen is
>> that user selects "other" and then the next tab press takes user to
>> the edit field.
>> Cheers
>> -B
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/22/14, Andrew Johns < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > Could someone confirm whether interdependent select boxes and text
>> > boxes
>> > are likely to cause many problems with accessibility these days?
>> >
>> > Essentially I want to re-create the 2001 UK census groupings. The
>> > first
>> > dropdown would contain 5 ethnicity groups, which are then broken down
>> into
>> > a subset of ethnic groups in a second dropdown, populated by the choice
>> > made in the first box.
>> >
>> > In the event that they then select "other" in the second dropdown, a
>> > textbox would then be displayed, allowing them to enter the value of
>> their
>> > choice.
>> >
>> > I saw an example (here:
>> > http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/accessibleinter/)
>> > which shows how you might change the approach and use radio buttons for
>> the
>> > first set instead, but I thought I'd check what current practices are.
>> >
>> > I did think about reloading the page after selection, but that feels
>> > clunky. Also, given the reasonably low number of options available, I
>> did
>> > consider optgroups in one single select box, but the number of "Others"
>> in
>> > it (one per optgroup) might make it more confusing anyway.
>> >
>> > Anything else I should consider before doing this? Is AJAX/Javascript
>> > generally accessible providing certain things are taken into
>> consideration?
>> >
>> > Kind regards,
>> >
>> > Andrew
>> > >> > >> > >> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
>> >> >> >>
>
>
>
> --
> Andrew
> http://andrewjohns.net
> > > >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.