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Re: Tab widgets

for

From: Donald Evans
Date: Jul 6, 2011 7:45AM

The recommended keyboard shortcuts for a tabbed interface can be found at:
http://dev.aol.com/dhtml_style_guide#tabpanel

This was a subcommittee of the ARIA working group...


On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Tim Harshbarger <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> For those of you who are dealing with, designing, or developing rich
> internet application widgets, how are you handling tabs interactions?
>
> Do your tab panels change as the user changes focus from tab to tab or do
> you only update the tab panel when the user selects the tab using the
> spacebar or enter key?
>
> I am finding advice on using both interaction approaches. I am trying to
> decide what is optimal. Right now, I am leaning towards requiring the user
> to press the spacebar or enter key to select the tab. The reason being, if
> the tab selection triggers an http request to retrieve updated tab panel
> contents from the server, its possibly going to be confusing to the user if
> they use the arrow keys to move across the tabs and the panel is being
> updated slightly behind the current selection. So, you move from tab A to
> tab B to tab C and, by the time you are on tab C, the content you are seeing
> is for tab B because the server is moving slow enough that the panel hasn't
> updated yet.
>
> Thanks!
> Tim
> Tim Harshbarger
> Your Friendly Neighborhood Accessibility Guy
> State Farm Insurance Companies
>
>