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Mega dropdowns and screen readers

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From: Bourne, Sarah (ITD)
Date: Aug 11, 2011 2:57PM

(I also posted this on the GSA's Web Content Managers mailing list; apologies for duplication if you are on that list, too.)

We are working on a mega dropdown feature, similar to the one at USA.gov. For sighted, mouse-using visitors, an expanded submenu screen is displayed below the primary navigation bar when you hover over a menu choice. The box goes away when you move the mouse away. (We also have keyboard controls, but we're not seeing any indication that they have anything to do with our problem.)

When our submenu is being displayed, JAWS (version 12.01169) correctly reads the choices, picks up on the headings and links in that submenu, but not the other hidden ones, etc., as designed. We were pleased and went on to test some other elements on the page.

As JAWS reads through a page, it automatically scrolls the screen, an essential feature for people who need screen reading but can see. At one point, we brought up the heading list and used it to jump to a location at the top of the page, which was off-screen. When JAWS scrolled up, the mouse pointer, which remains stationary, ended up resting on the navigation menu, so of course the menu opened and took the focus. JAWS then started reading, but it was reading from where we had left off on the previous test, not the submenu that was visible. And it continued to read all of the submenus, even the ones that were closed. And when it got to the end, it started over again. And we couldn't get it out of that loop without using the mouse to click on another part of the page. Yikes! That was not in our design!

We have not been able to find any reports of this kind of thing through Internet searches. But we have able to replicate the same thing on other pages using mega dropdowns. USA.gov, for instance, has this problem, but not every time. (Which is perhaps even more odd.) We have also been able to replicate this behavior using ZoomText with screen-reading turned on, so we're pretty sure this isn't a JAWS bug.

Has anyone else seen this? Does anybody have any suggestions for what to do about this? Has anybody seen any complaints from users, either for your sites or for others? Anything?

Thanks for any help you can provide,
sb

Sarah E. Bourne
Director of Assistive Technology &
Mass.Gov Chief Technology Strategist
Information Technology Division
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502 fax 617-626-4516
http://twitter.com/sarahebourne
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
http://www.mass.gov/itd