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Re: alternative to use of onChange in select menus

for

From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Jun 9, 2011 8:03AM

On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:

> Some folks argue that these folks are simply not using their keyboards correctly.

Since this behavior varies on a browser to browser level and is
never documented (that I've ever seen) in any documentation aimed
at users, calling this "not using their keyboards correctly"
would not be a particularly politic way of framing the argument,
I would think.

From a user experience perspective, there is no way for a user
looking at a web form to know whether a drop-down has been
programmed with onChange or not. Even for mouse users with no
accessibility needs, I've seen this cause problems, when they
expect that they can change multiple form elements and then the
page reloads immediately on changing a single drop-down.

But for a keyboard user, this is very annoying behavior. It's
unlikely that many keyboard users will have figured out the
"correct" ways to use their keyboards, because they can't tell
when looking at the form if it is an onChange or not, so they
won't be able to easily build patterns about what keyboard
activities have what effects. From the user standpoint, after
all, a form is a form, and the JavaScript events tied to the form
controls are invisible until fired off.

As a voice (therefore effectively keyboard) user, I have rarely
met an onChange form that was well enough designed not to be
incredibly annoying.

-deborah