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Re: Tab navigation for non-interactive content?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Oct 27, 2016 4:03PM

On 27/10/2016 20:04, Erik Conrad wrote:

> I know that having a tabindex on non-interactive content is not a best
> practice and may be unexpected or annoying for users who normally use the
> keyboard to navigate, but as someone with experience in UI design but new
> to accessibility, it seems like a fair trade off. I would greatly
> appreciate any opinions about how wrong (or right?) I am about that.

Coincidentally, I've just recently pushed a change to the W3C HTML5.2
editor's draft specifically warning that authors SHOULD NOT add tabindex
values greater or equal to zero to non-interactive elements.
https://w3c.github.io/html/editing.html#the-tabindex-attribute

Some discussion on this change here:
https://twitter.com/stevefaulkner/status/789885665253163008

Generally, it's confusing for keyboard users in general (as by default
only interactive controls/widgets receive focus). It's further
problematic for users of assistive technologies, as these
non-interactive elements, when focused, also lack a sensible role (since
they're non-interactive, and usually are <div>s, <span>s or similar that
don't get any special announcement of role by AT).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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