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Opinions on Custom Select Menu Behavior

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From: Vincent Young
Date: Oct 27, 2011 5:51PM

Select menus seem to have no consistency in terms of interaction and
identification within screen readers. For example:

http://webaim.org/techniques/forms/controls#select

In Safari/VoiceOver this select menu is identified as a pop-up button and
opens via down-arrow. In Firefox/Jaws it is identified as a combobox and
opens via alt+down arrow. What I'm wondering is when you are creating a
custom select menu with ARIA (e.g. Filament Group Custom Select
Menu<http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/jquery_ui_selectmenu_an_aria_accessible_plugin_for_styling_a_html_select/>;),
should you try to mimic the interaction/identification found in the native
control across different user agents/Assistive Technology or should you
attempt to standardize across the board. If you standardize, what should
you standardize on? Separate implementation is possible, but a total pain.


Thoughts please. Thanks.

Best,
Vincent

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