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Re: can screenreader user please test expanding content?

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Apr 5, 2011 5:57PM

Angela

To clarify what happens (IE8, Jaws 12 with latest update, Windows 7).
I open the link and load the page.
The page shows title, a heading level 1 sentence and then 4 links, each level 2.
I just see the link text, no indication of any kind that these links
represent anything special, other than that this is a link and a
heading, so the natural tendency, for me anyway, is to hit enter on
the link to see what happens.
For each of the link I selected it and hit enter.
There is no announcement of any changes, no autorefresh or cursor
movement of any kind, but when I arrow down I see the text now until I
come to the next link.
The same event happens for all of them.
I am just about to study ARIA myself so I cannot give you any smrt
insight into how it would work for you, but I would imagine that some
type of view or control (like treeview) could be used here with states
equal expanded or collapsed.
Another possibility would be to move the focus/cursor to the first
letter of the displayed text, with Javascript.
(but this can be confusing for screen reader users, I certainly don't
like it when the cursor takes off on me and moves without me telling
it to).
Could you simply add text to the link that is hidden but tells screen
readers something like (hit enter to expand text below this link)?
None of these are fantastic ideas and I will be urious to see what the
pros do, but at lesat now you know how the screen reader behaves, at
least Jaws 12.
hth
-b

On 4/5/11, Angela French < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Thank you to everybody who tested the jQuery expanding content for me. I
> should clarify that I did not create this page, but rather am looking for an
> implementation of expanding content (content that will close/expanded for
> sighted users) that will be completely accessible to screen reader users and
> non-mouse users.
>
> What I am still unclear about is this: is the content discoverable without
> any action by the screen readers user? My hope is that the fact that the
> content in the divs is "hidden" would be transparent to the screen reader
> user - in other words that it is already expanded. If it requires action by
> the screen reader user, what is the best way to convey that action is
> required? In this example, the developer used a background image of a plus
> sign to indicate to sighted users that that content can be expanded. If
> expanding the content requires action by the screen reader user, how do you
> know that it is required, other than the fact that the headline has been
> made into a link? When you click on it, what indication do you receive that
> there is additional content present, or does the screen reader just continue
> to read the page in a linear fashion?
>
> Thank you for any clarification you might provide.
>
> In case the link to the example is still needed, here it is:
> http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/examples/toggle/bad.htm
>
>