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Re: changing focus location for screen readers

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Feb 8, 2011 8:57AM

These findings mirror my own. Simply setting focus() with JavaScript
(even with tabindex values of 0 or -1) is not sufficient for JAWS in
many cases. Setting a delay often works, but not universally (for
example, a delay of even a full second will occasionally fail). One
solution that seems to work is setting focus to a form control within
the element. Because the original question referred to a search
dialog, this might work well - and may facilitate non-screen reader
usability as well. I can't remember for sure, but I think setting
focus to a link (perhaps the dialog's "close" link?) worked more
often, but not all the time. But these certainly are not viable
options all the time.

I generally recommend placing the markup for the dialog immediately
after the control that opens it. This way the user is more likely to
stumble upon it if/when JAWS fails to set focus.

Do note that content with height and width of 0 is not universally
hidden in all screen readers. I do not see this as a viable option.
CSS display:none should be used to truly hide content.

This is a problem I run into on nearly every site we evaluate. These
types of dialog boxes are becoming pervasive and with JAWS seemingly
unable to understand a basic focus() function, I think the best option
is for us to simply code it with the standard focus() and petition
Freedom Scientific to fix this bug.

Another issue that often arises with such dialog boxes is the user
tabbing back to the underlying content while the dialog remains open
in the foreground. Steve Faulkner has proposed a "modal" attribute to
HTML5 that would perfectly address all of these issues -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-wg-issue-tracking/2011Jan/0013.html

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org