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Re: Accessible table filtering options

for

From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Nov 5, 2010 2:09AM

Hello Allison,
> 2a. I vote for the "Go" button, as a sighted user. One of my pet
> peeves are select lists that change my screen after making a
> selection. I often forget the select list still has focus, and when I
> attempt to scroll the screen with my mouse wheel to review the
> results, the selection list scrolls and the data changes. Really,
> REALLY annoying! (Yes, "User error - replace user!" But, there are
> over 6 billion people on Earth, and I'm guessing I'm not alone!)
>
You're not, Terrill - what a wonderful description of my own (sighted)
user experience, which I have observed in a good number of other users
too :)

With respect to the "despised" *go* button (I wouldn't want one for each
input - one could perhaps serve for all?) :
WCAG 2.0 level A still requires that changes of context (whereby WAI
itself questions what that means...something to ponder) should be
explicitly user-initiated / warned aforehand:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#consistent-behavior-unpredictable-change
It may be worthwhile studying that section, which offers different
possibilities that may be inspiring in this case?...
For example, perhaps providing instructions before the beginning of the
form (e.g. indicating that changes to the dataset are made live during
selection/input) would make it viable to leave in the non-button
interactivity more or less as is (provided labels etc. already pointed
out are added)...?

As a developer I'd have a bit of an issue with the input title
attributes' contents (or is this just in there for demo purposes?): all
contain general instructions for use:
- which are repetitive
- which will not be visible to people using tab navigation
- tooltip display is also problematic for people with low vision, since
its texts don't enlarge
So these instructions are something I'd put in a "usage tips&hints"
section/box/page - e.g. similarly to how it is done on the PicNet Filter
description page ...

Otherwise, a cool filter, yep :)

HTH
Nathalie