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Re: Reg focus management for web application screen/layout changes.

for

From: Ramya Sethuraman
Date: Aug 4, 2012 9:42AM

Thanks for the info but I think my question is slightly different: more
details in this stackoverflow post I made:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11804257/web-accessibility-does-it-make-sense-for-focus-to-go-to-another-element-other-t/11804950#comment15694876_11804950


On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Ryan Hemphill < <EMAIL REMOVED>
> wrote:

> This is a very interesting question. One of the things that this brings up
> is the need to consider the fact that the popup (also called "modal") can
> be used for a large variety of content - pretty much all the content that
> you would see in a normal web page.
>
> It is for this reason that I feel pretty strongly that you should be
> handling your modal window content the same way you would focus on a normal
> page, but let the user know about the focus change. I know there are
> others that feel differently about this, but I would ask those that object
> to take a look at the different ways that modal windows are being used out
> in the wild these days. I think you will find that it demonstrates the
> diversity I was referring to.
>
> I think the most important thing, Ramya, is to let the user know that a
> focus change has occurred, drop it at the top of the dialog/popup/modal and
> give them a sense of where they have jumped to and the nature of the
> content. I would also like to mention that while you might be tempted to
> drop focus on a heading at the top of your popup, which would make sense -
> don't. JAWS has a bug in 10, 11 and 12(not sure about 13) that will cause
> it to read off as an empty text field.
>
> With that, I'm off to vacation land. Have a good weekend, all!
>
> Ryan
>
> On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 7:00 PM, Ramya Sethuraman <
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > My question is about focus management for web accessibility. When we
> launch
> > a popup/dialog, does focus always need to go to the first focusable
> element
> > for accessibility reasons or is it acceptable to set focus on an element
> > that we think the user is more likely to want to work with?
> >
> > For example, if a dialog starts with an input field and a cancel link
> > followed by a dropdown and we think the user would most likely want to
> work
> > with the dropdown when the dialog loads, is it ok to set focus on the
> > dropdown element? In this case, how would the user know about the
> previous
> > focusable elements existing on the dialog? But, if the dropdown is where
> > 80% of the users will want to be when the dialog is launched, it doesn't
> > make much sense placing focus on the initial input field...
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Ramya
> > > > > > > >
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Shipping is a Feature...Perhaps the Most Important Feature.
> > > >



--
*I also exist @: http://www.ramyasethuraman.com*